自動資料處理 (ADP) 2017 Q3 法說會逐字稿

Good morning. My name is Crystal, and I will be your conference operator. At this time, I would like to welcome everyone to ADP's Third Quarter Fiscal 2017 Earnings Call.

早安.我叫克麗絲塔爾，我將擔任你們的會議接線生。在此，我謹代表ADP公司歡迎各位參加2017財年第三季財報電話會議。

I would like to inform you that this conference is being recorded. (Operator Instructions)

我想告知各位，本次會議正在錄影。（操作說明）

I will now turn the conference over to Mr. Christian Greyenbuhl, Vice President, Investor Relations. Please go ahead.

現在我將把會議交給投資者關係副總裁克里斯蒂安·格雷恩布爾先生。請繼續。

Thank you, Crystal, and good morning, everyone. This is Christian Greyenbuhl, ADP's Vice President, Investor Relations.

謝謝你，Crystal，大家早安。這是ADP公司投資者關係副總裁克里斯蒂安‧格雷恩布爾。

I'm here today with Carlos Rodriguez, ADP's President and Chief Executive Officer; and Jan Siegmund, ADP's Chief Financial Officer. Thank you for joining us for our Third Quarter Fiscal 2017 Earnings Call and Webcast.

今天我與 ADP 總裁兼首席執行官卡洛斯·羅德里格斯以及 ADP 首席財務官簡·西格蒙德一起出席。感謝您參加我們2017財年第三季財報電話會議和網路直播。

During our call today, we will reference certain non-GAAP financial measures, which we believe to be useful to investors. A reconciliation of these non-GAAP financial measures to their comparable GAAP measures is included in our earnings release and in the supplemental slides on our Investor Relations website.

在今天的電話會議中，我們將提及一些非GAAP財務指標，我們認為這些指標對投資人是有用的。這些非GAAP財務指標與其對應的GAAP指標的調節表已包含在我們的獲利報告中以及我們投資者關係網站上的補充幻燈片中。

I'd like to remind everyone that today's call will contain forward-looking statements that refer to future events and, as such, involve some risk. We encourage you to review our filings with the SEC for additional information on risk factors that could cause actual results to differ materially from our current expectations.

我想提醒大家，今天的電話會議將包含有關未來事件的前瞻性陳述，因此存在一定的風險。我們建議您查閱我們向美國證券交易委員會提交的文件，以獲取有關可能導致實際結果與我們目前預期存在重大差異的風險因素的更多資​​訊。

Now let me turn the call over to Carlos.

現在我把電話交給卡洛斯。

Thank you, Christian. And thank you all for joining our call this morning. We appreciate your interest in ADP.

謝謝你，克里斯蒂安。感謝各位今天上午參加我們的電話會議。感謝您對ADP的關注。

Today, we released our third quarter fiscal 2017 results, with reported revenue growth of 5% to $3.4 billion. This revenue growth includes about 1 percentage point of pressure from the second quarter disposition of our spending accounts in COBRA businesses. Our diluted earnings per share grew 12% to $1.31. Jan will take you through the key contributing factors to our performance in more detail shortly.

今天，我們發布了 2017 財年第三季業績報告，營收成長 5% 至 34 億美元。這項營收成長包含了第二季 COBRA 業務支出帳戶處置帶來的約 1 個百分點的壓力。我們的稀釋後每股收益成長了 12%，達到 1.31 美元。Jan稍後會更詳細地向您介紹影響我們業績的關鍵因素。

Our new business bookings this quarter declined by 7% as we continued to overcome the strong fiscal 2016 sales of solutions that assist our clients in complying with the Affordable Care Act. I'd like to remind you that the Affordable Care Act factor was quite unique in that it helped accelerate various buying decisions across our mid- and upmarkets both from new client share and our existing base. Nevertheless, our pipeline of HCM opportunities continues to be strong as we leverage our investments in our strategic cloud platforms, Vantage and Workforce Now.

由於我們繼續克服 2016 財年幫助客戶遵守《平價醫療法案》的解決方案的強勁銷售，本季我們的新業務預訂量下降了 7%。我想提醒各位，平價醫療法案的特殊之處在於，它加速了我們在中高端市場（包括新客戶和現有客戶）的各種購買決策。儘管如此，隨著我們充分利用在戰略雲端平台 Vantage 和 Workforce Now 上的投資，我們的 HCM 機會管道仍然強勁。

Now let me discuss client retention. As we reported, retention declined 170 basis points for the quarter. The losses that contributed to this decline were concentrated on our legacy platforms, and we believe some of these losses were triggered by our upgrade activities in the mid- and upmarket. We maintain our core belief that these migrations are the right thing to do for our clients as well as for ADP. Our mid-market migrations are anticipated to be completed by the end of this calendar year, while the migration effort to upmarket will be phased-in over time in partnership with our clients. Client satisfaction and retention remains high on our strategic platforms and we are seeing that with our mid-market Workforce Now platform. The feedback from clients on this platform has been positive. In fact, a report from G2 Crowd, a leading business solutions review platform, recently added ADP Workforce Now to its best software 2017 list in the core HR category. This list is based exclusively on feedback from users of the product. We ranked highest for ease of use, quality of support, which is especially gratifying given our focus on service and the user experience.

現在讓我來談談客戶留存問題。正如我們所報導的那樣，本季客戶留存率下降了 170 個基點。導致此次下滑的損失主要集中在我們的傳統平台上，我們認為其中一些損失是由我們在中高端市場的升級活動引發的。我們始終堅信，這些遷移對我們的客戶以及 ADP 來說都是正確的做法。預計中端​​市場遷移工作將在今年底完成，而高端市場遷移工作將與客戶合作，分階段逐步進行。客戶滿意度和客戶留存率在我們的策略平台上一直保持較高水平，我們在面向中端市場的 Workforce Now 平台上也看到了這一點。客戶對該平台的回饋一直很積極。事實上，領先的商業解決方案評論平台 G2 Crowd 最近發布的一份報告將 ADP Workforce Now 添加到其 2017 年核心人力資源類別的最佳軟體清單中。此列表完全基於產品用戶的回饋。我們在易用性和支援品質方面排名最高，考慮到我們對服務和用戶體驗的重視，這尤其令人欣慰。

ADP's success over the past 68 years is tied to our ability to keep pace with our clients' evolving needs across economic cycles. As our recent workforce vitality report indicated, the labor market continues to be robust and we see our clients becoming increasingly focused on talent, finding, retaining and engaging critical staff in a much more competitive environment. Our recent acquisition of The Marcus Buckingham Company, which we completed in the third quarter, is an example of our commitment to assist clients in meeting their talent needs. When it comes to talent and performance management, we know the needs of each client and each team are unique. By adding TMBC's content, coaching and technology solutions to the ADP portfolio, we now offer a suite of proven products to help leaders unleash the talent of their teams and create value for our clients.

ADP過去68年的成功與我們能夠跟上客戶在經濟週期中不斷變化的需求息息相關。正如我們最近的勞動力活力報告所顯示的那樣，勞動力市場仍然強勁，我們看到我們的客戶越來越注重人才，在競爭更加激烈的環境中尋找、留住和吸引關鍵員工。我們最近收購了馬庫斯·白金漢公司（The Marcus Buckingham Company），該收購已於第三季完成，這反映了我們致力於幫助客戶滿足其人才需求的承諾。在人才和績效管理方面，我們知道每個客戶和每個團隊的需求都是獨一無二的。透過將 TMBC 的內容、輔導和技術解決方案添加到 ADP 產品組合中，我們現在提供了一套經過驗證的產品，以幫助領導者釋放團隊的才能並為我們的客戶創造價值。

We've talked before about our focus on the user experience and delivering solutions that our clients and their employees find easier and more intuitive to use. We've applied that same thinking to our channel partners with the introduction of ADP Accountant Connect. We are particularly proud of the continued strength and robust growth of our downmarket, where we now have over 500,000 clients on our RUN platform. And this unique solution provides our accountant channel partners with a unified view of payroll as well as reporting and tax information for all our shared clients. This solution was developed in collaboration with our accountant channel partners to meet their needs and has already been recognized by Accounting Today as one of its 2017 top new products in the accountant resources category. We believe solutions like ADP Accountant Connect will help further enhance our relationships with this important referral channel while creating a better experience for our shared clients.

我們之前就談過，我們注重使用者體驗，致力於提供客戶及其員工覺得更容易、更直覺使用的解決方案。我們運用同樣的理念，為通路夥伴推出了 ADP Accountant Connect。我們尤其為下端市場的持續強勁成長感到自豪，目前我們的 RUN 平台擁有超過 50 萬名客戶。這個獨特的解決方案為我們的會計通路合作夥伴提供了統一的薪資視圖，以及我們所有共同客戶的報告和稅務資訊。該解決方案是與我們的會計通路合作夥伴合作開發的，旨在滿足他們的需求，並已被《今日會計》雜誌評為 2017 年會計資源類別中的頂級新產品之一。我們相信，像 ADP Accountant Connect 這樣的解決方案將有助於進一步加強我們與這個重要轉介管道的關係，同時為我們的共同客戶創造更好的體驗。

We are also pleased to recently receive recognition from NelsonHall, a global BPO analyst firm, who identified ADP as a leader in payroll services for the fourth consecutive year. In naming us a leader, the NelsonHall report highlighted our global reach and the breadth of our service offering, allowing clients ranging from small businesses to global enterprises to choose how much expertise they wish to retain in-house or to outsource. In its report, NelsonHall also recognized ADP's ability to help clients benchmark their workforce metrics against industry averages using the ADP DataCloud. And they also recognized the ADP Marketplace, which helps clients access an ecosystem of enterprise applications from ADP and our partners to extend the value of their HCM solutions.

我們也很高興最近獲得了全球 BPO 分析公司 NelsonHall 的認可，該公司連續第四年將 ADP 評為薪資服務領域的領導者。NelsonHall 報告將我們評為領導者，並強調了我們的全球影響力以及我們服務的廣度，使從小型企業到全球企業的客戶能夠選擇他們希望保留多少內部專業知識或外包多少專業知識。NelsonHall 在報告中也認可了 ADP 利用 ADP DataCloud 來幫助客戶將其員工指標與行業平均值進行基準比較的能力。他們還認可了 ADP Marketplace，該平台可協助客戶存取 ADP 及其合作夥伴的企業應用程式生態系統，從而擴展其 HCM 解決方案的價值。

It's great to be recognized in the industry, but it's also great when we see our company recognized more broadly, which is why I was especially proud to see Fortune magazine name us to their most admired companies list for the 11th time and ranked us #1 in our category for the fifth straight time. I'm particularly proud of this, because it's a testament to the confidence our stakeholders place in us and to the continued dedication of our 57,000 associates.

能在業界獲得認可很好，但看到公司獲得更廣泛的認可也同樣令人欣喜。因此，我特別自豪地看到《財星》雜誌第 11 次將我們列入最受尊敬公司榜單，並連續第五次將我們評為所在類別的第一名。我對此感到特別自豪，因為它證明了我們的利害關係人對我們的信任，以及我們 57,000 名員工的持續奉獻。

In closing, despite the pressure on new business bookings and retention, we remain confident in the enduring qualities of our business. We are pleased with the continued strong performance of our PEO and multinational solutions and with our improving service metrics within the mid-market. We are especially pleased with our success in the downmarket, which continues to demonstrate the value of our strategy to deliver great technology and great service. We are confident that this strategy is the right one to help our clients succeed, which will in turn drive sustained growth for ADP.

最後，儘管新業務預訂和客戶留存面臨壓力，但我們仍然對業務的持久品質充滿信心。我們對 PEO 和跨國解決方案的持續強勁表現以及我們在中端市場不斷提高的服務指標感到滿意。我們尤其對我們在低端市場的成功感到滿意，這繼續證明了我們提供卓越技術和優質服務的策略的價值。我們相信，這項策略是幫助客戶成功的正確方法，而這也將推動 ADP 的持續成長。

With that, I'll turn the call over to Jan for a further review of our third quarter results and an update on the fiscal 2017 outlook.

接下來，我將把電話交給 Jan，讓他進一步回顧我們第三季的業績，並更新 2017 財年的展望。

Thank you very much, Carlos, and good morning, everyone.

非常感謝卡洛斯，大家早安。

ADP revenues for the quarter grew 5% on a reported basis, 6% organic. Our revenue growth this quarter experienced pressure as we began to lap our fiscal year 2016 ACA-related revenues. Pretax earnings from continuing operations before taxes grew 4% on a reported basis to $828 million, despite almost 2 percentage points of combined pressure from our second quarter business disposition and our fiscal year 2017 acquisitions.

ADP本季營收按報告數據成長5%，有機成長6%。本季我們的營收成長面臨壓力，因為我們開始超過 2016 財年與 ACA 相關的營收。儘管受到第二季業務處置和 2017 財年收購帶來的近 2 個百分點的綜合壓力，但持續經營業務稅前利潤按報告基準仍增長 4% 至 8.28 億美元。

Adjusted earnings before interest and taxes or adjusted EBIT grew 4%. Adjusted EBIT margin decreased about 20 basis points compared to 24.8% in last year's third quarter. Our margins this quarter were impacted by slower revenue growth, as we maintain our investments in product sales and service, including dual operations costs related to our Service Alignment Initiative.

調整後息稅前利潤（調整後 EBIT）成長 4%。調整後 EBIT 利潤率較去年第三季的 24.8% 下降了約 20 個基點。本季度，由於我們持續投資於產品銷售和服務，包括與我們的服務調整計劃相關的雙重營運成本，收入成長放緩，導致我們的利潤率受到影響。

Our net earnings grew 10% on a reported basis to $588 million and benefited from a lower effective tax rate. Our effective tax rate this quarter was aided by an incremental tax benefit related to prior period software development efforts, $0.04 of which was not previously anticipated; and $0.02 tax benefit related to the adoption of new stock-based compensation accounting guidance. Diluted earnings per share grew 12% to $1.31 and benefited from fewer shares outstanding compared with a year ago.

按報告數據，我們的淨利潤成長了 10%，達到 5.88 億美元，並受益於較低的實際稅率。本季我們的實際稅率得益於與前期軟體開發工作相關的增量稅收優惠，其中 0.04 美元是先前未預料到的；以及與採用新的股票選擇權激勵會計準則相關的 0.02 美元稅收優惠。稀釋後每股收益成長 12% 至 1.31 美元，這得益於與去年同期相比流通股數量的減少。

Our new business bookings performance this quarter was disappointing. However, we have continued to make investments into our sales organization to better position us for growth. We're confident in the competitiveness of our portfolio and the strengths of our distribution capabilities and, in turn, our ability to execute on our pipeline of market opportunities.

本季我們的新業務預訂量表現令人失望。然而，我們持續加大對銷售組織的投入，以便更好地為成長做好準備。我們對自身產品組合的競爭力、強大的分銷能力以及把握市場機會的能力充滿信心。

In our Employer Services segment, revenues grew 2% on a reported basis for the quarter and included 1 percentage point of pressure from the sale of our CHSA and COBRA businesses earlier this fiscal year. Our same-store pays per control metric in the U.S. grew 2.5% in the third quarter. Average client fund balances grew 2% on a reported basis or 3% on a constant dollar basis compared to a year ago. As a result of improving employment, we have continued to see pressure from lower state unemployment insurance collections impact client fund balances. This pressure was offset by a combination of wage inflation and growth in our pays per control metric.

在我們的雇主服務部門，本季報告的收入成長了 2%，其中包括本財年稍早出售 CHSA 和 COBRA 業務帶來的 1 個百分點的壓力。第三季度，我們在美國同店每個控制點支付的指標成長了 2.5%。以報告數據計算，平均客戶資金餘額比上年同期增長了 2%；以固定美元計算，則增長了 3%。由於就業情況好轉，我們持續看到各州失業保險金徵收額下降對客戶資金餘額造成影響。薪資上漲和我們控制指標的薪酬成長抵消了這種壓力。

Employer Services margin decreased about 40 basis points in the quarter. This decrease was driven by slower revenue growth, as we maintain our investments in product sales and service, including dual operations related to our Service Alignment Initiative.

本季雇主服務利潤率下降了約 40 個基點。收入成長放緩是導致收入下降的主要原因，因為我們持續投資於產品銷售和服務，包括與我們的服務調整計劃相關的雙重營運。

PEO revenues grew 12% in the quarter, with average worksite employees growing 12% to 471,000. The PEO continued to experience slowing growth and the benefit pass-through costs resulting from lower health care renewal premiums, which outweighed growth from higher-benefit planned participation of our worksite employees during the quarter. The PEO margins continued to expand through operational efficiencies, which helped drive approximately 100 basis points of margin expansion in the quarter.

PEO 收入在本季成長了 12%，平均工作場所員工人數增加了 12%，達到 471,000 人。PEO 繼續面臨成長放緩和因醫療保健續保費降低而導致的福利轉嫁成本，這抵消了本季工作場所員工參與高福利計畫帶來的成長。透過提高營運效率，PEO利潤率持續擴大，這推動了本季利潤率成長約100個基點。

New business bookings this quarter were down 7%, and as a result, we now expect new business bookings for fiscal year 2017 to decline about 5% to 7% compared to the $1.75 billion sold in fiscal year 2016. We have also updated certain other elements of our fiscal 2017 forecast, which I will now take you through.

本季新業務訂單下降了 7%，因此，我們現在預計 2017 財年新業務訂單將比 2016 財年的 17.5 億美元下降約 5% 至 7%。我們也更新了 2017 財年預測中的其他一些內容，接下來我將為大家詳細介紹。

Despite our revised new business bookings guidance and this quarter's revenue retention decline, our revenue outlook remains unchanged at about 6%. This forecast continues to include 1 percentage point of combined pressure from the sale of our CHSA and COBRA businesses and the impacts from foreign currency.

儘管我們修訂了新業務預訂預期，本季營收留存率有所下降，但我們的營收預期仍維持在 6% 左右。該預測仍然包括出售 CHSA 和 COBRA 業務以及外匯影響帶來的 1 個百分點的綜合壓力。

For our Employer Services segment, consistent with our prior forecast, revenue growth is anticipated to be 3% to 4%, which continues to include 1 percentage point of combined pressure from the sale of our CHSA and COBRA businesses and the impacts from foreign currency. For the PEO, ADP continues to anticipate revenue growth of 13%. We continue to expect our consolidated adjusted EBIT margin expansion to be about 50 basis points, which includes about 20 basis points of pressure from dual operations pertaining to our Service Alignment Initiative, which was not part of our non-GAAP charges. On a segment level, we continue to anticipate margin expansion in Employer Services of 25 to 50 basis points. For the PEO, we expect continued operating efficiencies and slower growth in our pass-through revenues as compared to fiscal year 2016 to help drive margin expansion on a full year basis. Accordingly, we continue to expect fiscal year 2017 PEO margin expansion of at least 100 basis points.

對於我們的雇主服務部門，與我們先前的預測一致，預計收入將增長為 3% 至 4%，其中仍然包括出售 CHSA 和 COBRA 業務以及外匯影響帶來的 1 個百分點的綜合壓力。對於 PEO 業務，ADP 繼續預計營收成長 13%。我們仍然預計，經調整後的合併 EBIT 利潤率將擴大約 50 個基點，其中包括與我們的服務調整計劃相關的雙重運營帶來的約 20 個基點的壓力，這部分壓力不屬於我們的非 GAAP 費用。從業務部門來看，我們繼續預期雇主服務業務的利潤率將擴大 25 至 50 個基點。對於 PEO 而言，我們預計營運效率的持續提高以及與 2016 財年相比轉嫁收入成長放緩將有助於推動全年利潤率的擴張。因此，我們繼續預期 2017 財年 PEO 利潤率將至少成長 100 個基點。

We are also now expecting growth in client funds interest revenue to increase to about $20 million compared with our prior forecasted increase of about $15 million. The total impact from the client funds extended investment strategy is now expected to be up about $15 million compared to the prior forecast of about $10 million. The details of this forecast can be found in the supplemental slides on our investors relations website.

我們現在預計客戶資金利息收入將成長至約 2,000 萬美元，而我們先前預測的成長額約為 1,500 萬美元。客戶資金擴展投資策略的總影響預計將比先前的預測高出約 1,500 萬美元，而先前的預測約為 1,000 萬美元。此預測的詳細內容可在我們投資者關係網站的補充幻燈片中找到。

As a result of the software development-related tax benefit, some of which was not previously contemplated in our prior guidance, and the additional benefit of -- related to the stock-based compensation accounting change, we now estimate our adjusted effective tax rate for fiscal year 2017 to be 31.4% as compared to our prior forecasted rate of 32.4%. Based upon our revision of our effective tax rate guidance, adjusted diluted earnings per share is now expected to grow 13% to 14% compared to our prior forecast of 11% to 13%. Our forecast also continues to contemplate a return of excess cash to shareholders via share repurchases of $1.2 billion to $1.4 billion, subject to market conditions during fiscal year 2017. This forecast includes any repurchases required to offset dilution related to employee benefit plans.

由於軟體開發相關的稅務優惠（其中一些優惠在我們先前的指導意見中並未考慮），以及與股票選擇權激勵會計變更相關的額外收益，我們現在估計 2017 財年的調整後有效稅率為 31.4%，而我們先前預測的稅率為 32.4%。根據我們對有效稅率指引的修訂，調整後的稀釋每股盈餘預計將成長 13% 至 14%，而我們先前的預測為 11% 至 13%。我們的預測也繼續考慮在 2017 財年透過股票回購向股東返還 12 億至 14 億美元的超額現金，具體金額取決於市場情況。該預測包括為抵消與員工福利計劃相關的股權稀釋而需要進行的任何回購。

So with that, I will turn the call back to our operator to take your questions.

那麼，我將把電話轉回給我們的接線生，由他來回答您的問題。

(Operator Instructions) We will take our first question from David Togut from Evercore ISI.

（操作員說明）我們首先來回答來自 Evercore ISI 的 David Togut 提出的問題。

Last quarter -- I'm thinking of as the December quarter, you showed an improvement in client retention, I believe, 10 basis points; in this quarter, the March quarter, down 170. What was the major change between the December quarter and the March quarter that laid to -- led to that decline in client revenue retention?

上個季度——我指的是 12 月季度——你們的客戶留存率有所提高，我認為提高了 10 個基點；而本季度，也就是 3 月季度，下降了 170 個基點。12 月季度和 3 月季度之間發生了哪些主要變化，導致客戶收入留存率下降？

Well, I think as we mentioned, I think, in our opening comments, it was concentrated in our legacy platforms in the mid-market and in the upmarket, but it was particularly skewed towards the upmarket this quarter. Some of the losses we -- as you know, we don't provide guidance, and in the December quarter we wouldn't have talked about forward-looking retention, but some of the deterioration that we experienced in the quarter was anticipated as a result of some known large losses. We typically have a reasonable amount of visibility, sometimes several quarters, if not a year or more, for very large clients when they are moving off of one of our solutions. But I guess the core message we were trying to deliver in our comments is that it continues to be concentrated in our legacy platforms.

嗯，我認為正如我們在開場白中提到的那樣，這個問題主要集中在我們面向中端市場和高端市場的傳統平台上，但本季尤其偏向高端市場。如您所知，我們不提供業績指引，而且在 12 月季度我們也不會談論前瞻性留存率，但我們在該季度經歷的一些惡化是由於一些已知的重大損失而預期的。對於一些非常大的客戶來說，當他們從我們的某個解決方案中遷移出去時，我們通常能夠獲得相當程度的了解，有時甚至能了解幾個季度，甚至一年或更長時間。但我認為我們在評論中想要傳達的核心訊息是，它仍然集中在我們的傳統平台上。

Understood. And just as a quick follow-up, it would seem that the decline in new bookings this year and some of the pressure on client revenue retention would be more consequential for fiscal '18 given the way your revenue model works. Can you give us some preliminary thoughts about fiscal '18 based on the retention trends and the booking trends you're seeing in FY '17?

明白了。最後補充一點，鑑於貴公司的收入模式，今年新訂單的減少以及客戶收入留存方面的一些壓力，似乎對 2018 財年的影響會更大。根據您在 2017 財年觀察到的顧客留存率和預訂趨勢，您能否對 2018 財年給予一些初步看法？

Well, I think you're right about the way the math works for our business. And I think that's why Jan was very clear in kind of reaffirming our guidance for obviously the rest of the year, because we're so far into the year that these variations in retention and sales have very little impact on the current next quarter and even maybe 1 quarter after that. But clearly, going forward for the next fiscal year, it does roll into the math in terms of that waterfall chart that we've shared with you. As you know, we don't provide guidance for fiscal year '18 until our August call. So we're really in the middle of our operating plan process, and we'll obviously have better information then in terms of how that waterfall chart exactly falls through in terms of the various factors that impact our revenue growth in fiscal year '18.

嗯，我認為你對我們業務的數學運作方式的理解是正確的。我認為這就是為什麼 Jan 非常明確地重申了我們對今年剩餘時間的預期，因為現在已經過去這麼久了，客戶留存率和銷售額的這些波動對當前下一個季度甚至再下一個季度的影響都非常小。但很顯然，就下一個財政年度而言，它確實會體現在我們與您分享的瀑布圖的計算中。如您所知，我們要等到八月的電話會議才會提供 2018 財年的業績指引。所以我們現在正處於營運計劃流程的中間階段，到那時我們顯然會掌握更好的信息，了解瀑布圖是如何具體反映影響我們 2018 財年收入增長的各種因素的。

I think that's true, but David, you are mathematically correct that our new business bookings and -- get implemented and turn into revenue after 6 months, approximately. And so some of the impact of our lower retention and lower sales will be seen in the revenue growth next year as you roll it forward.

我認為這是真的，但是大衛，從數學角度來說，你的計算是正確的，我們的新業務預訂大約需要 6 個月才能實施並轉化為收入。因此，隨著時間推移，我們較低的客戶留存率和較低的銷售額的一些影響將反映在明年的收入成長中。

Our next question comes from Rick Eskelsen from Wells Fargo.

下一個問題來自富國銀行的里克·埃斯克爾森。

Just the first one, if I heard you correctly, it sounded like the mid-market client migrations have been pushed out by 2 quarters. The question, I guess, is why have you pushed that out. And then expanding on that a little bit further, as you're starting, it sounds like, with the upmarket, how has what you've seen in the mid-market colored your expectations and how you're going to approach the upmarket?

如果我沒聽錯的話，第一個問題似乎是中端市場客戶的遷移被推遲了兩個季度。我想，問題在於你為什麼要把它推出去。然後，再進一步展開說說，既然你開始了，聽起來，在中端市場，你看到的景像如何影響了你對高端市場的預期以及你將如何進入高端市場？

Yes, I think the -- you're right about the timing, that we were hoping that we would be done -- I think our wording was that we would be done somewhere around the end of this fiscal year. And so, now we're saying by the end of the calendar year. Realistically, we really don't do migrations in November and December because we have year-end and a lot of activities going on. So it's really a few months. And it's a few clients -- or a few thousand clients, because in the mid-market we're talking about clients in the thousands. And just as a reminder, there was tens of thousands. I think the total number of client migrations was 60,000 -- somewhere around 50,000 or 60,000 clients. And so what we're talking about is, I would say, a couple thousand stragglers that we felt, in order to just meet an artificial deadline, wasn't worth -- we learned our lesson, I think, 1.5 years ago around, when we had to accelerate in some cases, we were forced to accelerate migrations as a result of ACA to get clients on our new platform in order to be able to give them that solution. We learned through that process that you really want to -- you want to really truly upgrade the clients; and have them feel that it's an upgrade, not a forced march or a negative experience. And so we're just focused on making sure that it's the right kind of experience. And we felt like a couple thousand clients falling over from 1 fiscal year to the other is really not that big of a deal, in our minds. And I think it's the right thing to do. And I think, to answer your question about how that colors, how that experience colors our approach in the upmarket, again I think we learned some lessons in terms of making sure that we do things at the proper pace and that we do it in partnership with our clients. And I think that becomes much more important in the upmarket, where it's much more complex and clients have, in many cases, to provide a lot of their own internal resources in order to make a migration happen. In the small market, when we did those migrations, there was very little effort and very little need for clients to be involved. In the mid-market, there was a little bit more effort, a little more involvement by the clients. And in the upmarket, there's quite a lot of involvement and, hence, it has to be much more carefully planned. And hence, you're probably hearing from us that it's going to be longer -- a longer process in terms of getting those upgrades completed.

是的，我認為──你說的時機是對的，我們原本希望──我想我們當時的說法是，我們會在本財年結束前後完成。所以，現在我們說的是到年底。實際上，我們在 11 月和 12 月並不進行遷移，因為那是年末，有很多活動要進行。所以實際上也就幾個月的時間。而且客戶數量不多——或者說幾千個客戶，因為在中端市場，我們談論的是成千上萬的客戶。再次提醒大家，當時有數萬人。我認為客戶遷移的總數為 60,000——大約是 50,000 到 60,000 個客戶。所以，我想說的是，我們討論的是幾千個零散的客戶，我們覺得為了趕上人為設定的最後期限而這樣做是不值得的——我想，大約在1.5年前，我們吸取了教訓，當時我們不得不加快一些遷移速度，由於《平價醫療法案》(ACA) 的實施，我們被迫加快遷移速度，以便讓客戶使用我們的新平台，從而能夠為他們提供解決方案。我們透過這個過程了解到，你真正想要的是－你真正想要的是真正地提升客戶體驗；並且讓他們覺得這是一次升級，而不是被迫的或負面的體驗。因此，我們只專注於確保它能帶來正確的體驗。在我們看來，幾千個客戶從一個財政年度流失到另一個財政年度，真的不算什麼大事。我認為這樣做是對的。至於你問到這種經驗如何影響我們在高端市場的做法，我認為我們從中吸取了一些教訓，確保我們以適當的節奏做事，並與客戶合作完成。我認為這一點在高端市場會變得更加重要，因為高端市場的情況更加複雜，很多情況下，客戶需要投入大量內部資源才能完成遷移。在小市場中，當我們進行這些遷移時，幾乎不需要任何努力，也幾乎不需要客戶的參與。在中端市場，客戶投入了更多精力，也更積極參與其中。而高端市場涉及的人員眾多，因此必須進行更周密的規劃。因此，您可能已經從我們這裡了解到，完成這些升級的過程將會更長。

Then just to follow up. As you've had a little more time in the new service delivery geographies, how has the ability to find talent been? How is it compared to your expectations for shifting to those locations?

然後只是想跟進一下。隨著您在新服務區域投入更多時間，您覺得尋找人才的情況如何？與你對搬遷到這些地方的預期相比，實際情況如何？

I think it's fair to say that we are -- again, we're early in our goals here, but we're -- really we're on track, so we're actually quite pleased. We've got several thousand people already hired in our new locations in Orlando; in Maitland, which is near Orlando; in Norfolk, Virginia; and we're already hiring also in Tempe. And this is in addition to Augusta and El Paso, where we already had 2 strategic locations. And we have a few other -- a couple of other key locations, but those are the ones that we've been talking the most about regarding our Strategic Alignment Initiative. So I'd say we're pleased with the talent. We're pleased with the pace. I think we're on plan in terms of the number of people we were intending to hire. We're on plan in terms of the wage levels and the quality of the talent. I have obviously visited, and I think Jan -- we've all visited these locations. In fact, we had a very large associate town hall meeting in our Norfolk, Virginia location. And it may be a honeymoon phase, but it's an incredibly energetic environment. People are very positive and very bullish on ADP. I think we're considered a great employer in the markets that we are entering. And we've got a lot of help from other parts of the organization, getting these folks trained and ready to be able to actually deliver service. And in some cases, they are -- obviously already are. And that's why we have some of these dual operations costs that Jan has referred to a couple of times, because we're trying to make sure that we do this in a very careful and methodical way.

我認為可以公平地說，我們——再次強調，我們距離目標還處於早期階段，但我們——確實走在正確的軌道上，所以我們實際上相當滿意。我們在奧蘭多、奧蘭多附近的梅特蘭、維吉尼亞州諾福克的新址已經僱用了數千人；而且我們也在坦佩招募員工。除了奧古斯塔和埃爾帕索之外，我們還沒有其他戰略要地。我們還有其他幾個——幾個其他的關鍵地點，但就我們的策略調整計劃而言，我們談論最多的就是這些地點。所以我覺得我們對人才很滿意。我們對這個進度很滿意。我認為就我們計劃招聘的人數而言，我們目前進展順利。就薪資水平和人才品質而言，我們一切都在按計劃進行。我當然去過這些地方，我想簡──我們都去過這些地方。事實上，我們在維吉尼亞州諾福克市舉行了一次規模非常大的員工大會。這或許還處於蜜月期，但這裡的氛圍充滿活力。人們對ADP持非常積極和樂觀的態度。我認為，在我們進入的市場中，我們被認為是優秀的雇主。我們也得到了組織內其他部門的大力幫助，對這些人進行培訓，使他們能夠真正提供服務。在某些情況下，它們顯然已經是了。這就是為什麼我們會有一些 Jan 多次提到的雙重營運成本，因為我們正在努力確保我們以非常謹慎和有條不紊的方式完成這項工作。

And our next question comes from Tien-tsin Huang from JPMorgan.

下一個問題來自摩根大通的黃天進。

Just a couple of questions. Just on the pricing front on successfully migrating clients to the new strategic platforms, any surprises there? Did that contribute at all to the bookings forecast?

幾個問題。就成功將客戶遷移到新策略平台的定價方面而言，有什麼意外情況嗎？這是否對預訂預測產生了影響？

We are -- just to be clear, when we migrate our clients, their migration itself is not counting as a new business booking, because in business bookings count only incremental recurring revenue that we record. So the migration is generally cost neutral to our clients and they have enhanced feature functionality with the new product that they get. In the process, clients continue to make buying decisions and buy incremental modules as they do, and we have seen that trend continue, and particularly in the mid-market, but the actual migration is revenue neutral as we approach it. And that will be the same for all our market clients.

需要明確的是，當我們遷移客戶時，遷移本身並不會計入新的業務預訂，因為業務預訂只計算我們記錄的增量經常性收入。因此，對於我們的客戶而言，遷移通常不會產生任何成本，而且他們還能透過新產品獲得更強大的功能。在此過程中，客戶繼續做出購買決定併購買增量模組，我們已經看到這種趨勢仍在繼續，尤其是在中端市場，但就我們目前所見，實際遷移在收入上是中性的。對於我們所有的市場客戶來說，情況都將如此。

I wasn't sure if the change might get captured in the sold business bookings...

我不確定這項變更是否會反映在已售業務的預訂中…

Yes, the change, if a client buys more -- I don't have the most recent statistics here, but I think the trends continue that they continue -- that a number of clients purchases incremental modules as they see the power of the integrated platform. And so there is some slight revenue uptick that we do see for the clients who choose that. And that -- only that incremental revenue would be reflected, but it would be immaterial for the new business bookings number in total.

是的，如果客戶購買更多，就會發生變化——我這裡沒有最新的統計數據，但我認為趨勢仍在繼續——許多客戶在看到整合平台的強大功能後，會購買增量模組。因此，選擇該方案的客戶確實獲得了一些輕微的收入成長。而這——只會反映出這部分新增收入，但這對新業務預訂總量來說無關緊要。

Got it. One more quick follow-up. I know, Jan, Carlos, you've been sort of, I guess, signaling or suggesting that some of these things could happen with ACA, but I'm just curious just looking back now. Is some of the reduction in this bookings outlook, how much -- is there a way to quantify how much might be related to the weak follow-through on ACA module sales and the related tough comp on ACA modules versus maybe a pull forward of broader payroll, HCM sales related to ACA? Do you follow my question?

知道了。還有一個後續問題。我知道，Jan，Carlos，你們似乎一直在暗示或暗示，ACA可能會帶來一些這樣的事情，但我現在回過頭來看，只是很好奇。此次預訂預期下降的部分原因是什麼？下降幅度有多大？有沒有辦法量化其中有多少是由於 ACA 模組銷售後續跟進疲軟以及 ACA 模組銷售競爭激烈造成的，又有多少是由於與 ACA 相關的更廣泛的薪資、HCM 銷售提前造成的？你明白我的問題嗎？

I do. I do. And I think that it is -- as I think we've been trying to signal for, I think, probably 3 years, if we go back to my notes, it's very hard, because we're obviously in uncharted territories because we were in something completely new. And it was a very comprehensive regulatory framework that required a lot of information from HR platforms, payroll platforms, benefit platforms et cetera. And when you look back, we had 2 years of more than 12% new business bookings growth. And this is why we were cautious all along, because that is a little strong. We were happy with it, and we take it. It's good for our shareholders, it's good for ADP and it's good for our revenues, but it definitely felt like a fairly significant tailwind. And I think in hindsight it was obviously a big tailwind. Now -- what has now added, I think, tension to that pressure, which again we can't quantify scientifically, is that we have, I think, a different environment politically that's creating some uncertainty. That certainly has impacted our new business bookings. We just can't put our finger on exactly to what extent. So as an example, we knew we had a grow-over issue just for ACA itself, because we had already sold 50% of our addressable client base, but we did have some planned sales of ACA this year. And even though we've gotten some, it's significantly lower than planned, which is not surprising given the headlines and the frequent votes on repeal and replace of ACA. So I think that's a second factor that I think was not certainly anticipated as we entered into this fiscal year in terms of our planning process. But we knew we had the grow-over -- the mathematical grow-over issue; now we have the, what I would call, the political issue. And then the third one that you mentioned, which again is very hard for us to put our finger on, but I think you're on to something, because we experienced the same thing back when we had the Y2K phenomenon in year 2000, where you do have some amount of pull-forward, if you will, of business, because we've seen this, particularly on some of our wins last year from ERPs were quite high and elevated. And I think some of that, it appears, with the benefit of hindsight, is people on kind of older legacy technology trying to find a new solution for ACA. And by the way, some of that happened to us. So as we mentioned before, we think some of our retention issues last year may have been related to the same factor of people kind of just out looking for new solutions as a result of what I would call an event, which was a significant event called ACA. So I think all 3 things are a factor. I really -- we really wish we could put our finger on exactly how much each one is accountable, but unfortunately we can't.

我願意。我願意。我認為確實如此——正如我們過去三年來一直試圖表達的那樣，如果我們回顧我的筆記，這非常困難，因為我們顯然處於未知領域，因為我們正在做一些全新的事情。這是一個非常全面的監管框架，需要從人力資源平台、薪資平台、福利平台等獲取大量資訊。回顧過去，我們曾連續兩年實現超過 12% 的新業務預訂量成長。這就是為什麼我們一直都很謹慎，因為這有點太過了。我們很滿意，我們接受了。這對我們的股東有好處，對 ADP 有好處，對我們的收入也有好處，但這無疑感覺像是一股相當大的順風。事後看來，這顯然是一個巨大的順風。現在，我認為，加劇這種壓力的因素是，我們面臨著不同的政治環境，這造成了一些不確定性，而這種壓力我們無法用科學方法量化。這無疑對我們的新業務預訂產生了影響。我們無法確切指出其程度。舉例來說，我們知道僅就 ACA 本身而言，我們就存在成長過剩的問題，因為我們已經售出了 50% 的目標客戶群，但我們今年確實有一些 ACA 的銷售計劃。儘管我們已經獲得了一些，但遠低於計劃，考慮到有關廢除和取代《平價醫療法案》的新聞頭條和頻繁的投票，這並不令人驚訝。所以我認為這是我們在進入本財政年度規劃過程中沒有預料到的第二個因素。但我們知道我們面臨著成長問題——數學上的成長問題；現在我們面臨著我稱之為政治問題的問題。然後是你提到的第三個問題，我們很難準確指出，但我認為你抓住了重點，因為我們在 2000 年的千年蟲問題上也經歷過同樣的情況，即業務會提前完成，因為我們已經看到，尤其是在我們去年從 ERP 系統中獲得的一些訂單中，訂單量相當高。事後看來，我認為其中一些原因是人們在使用較舊的傳統技術，試圖為《平價醫療法案》(ACA) 尋找新的解決方案。順便說一句，我們身上也發生過其中一些事。正如我們之前提到的，我們認為去年的一些客戶留存問題可能與同一個因素有關，那就是人們因為一個我稱之為「事件」的重大事件（即ACA）而開始尋找新的解決方案。所以我認為這三件事都是影響因素。我們真希望能夠準確地指出每個人應該承擔多少責任，但遺憾的是，我們做不到。

(Operator Instructions) Our next question will come from Jim Schneider from Goldman Sachs.

（操作說明）我們的下一個問題將來自高盛的吉姆·施耐德。

Maybe just to follow up on the prior question. On the new bookings weakness you're seeing and specifically the revision to guidance, obviously going from flat to down 5% for the full year. I think you had talked last quarter about seeing confidence in improving bookings rates as you head through the end of the year. I guess, maybe you could talk anecdotally about what changed from 3 months ago to today. And in terms of specific client conversations you're having, is it simply the regulatory environment uncertainty seizing things up in terms of purchasing decisions? And then if you've got any color on what clients are telling you about what they'd have to see to get more confidence to book.

或許只是想對之前​​的問題做補充。關於您看到的新訂單疲軟，特別是對業績指引的調整，顯然是從全年持平調整為下降 5%。我認為您上個季度曾談到，隨著年底臨近，您對提高預訂率充滿信心。我想，或許你可以談談從三個月前到現在發生了哪些改變。就您與客戶的具體對話而言，是否僅僅是監管環境的不確定性阻礙了他們的購買決策？然後，如果你能從客戶那裡了解到他們需要看到什麼才能更有信心預訂，那就更好了。

Yes. I think that -- a couple of comments and then maybe Jan can add some of his observations. We've obviously been meeting frequently with our sales leaders, and I've been going around to sales meetings trying to get -- put my finger on the pulse. And it's -- doesn't appear that it's the economy, because we have very robust and strong results in our downmarket. Our PEO is still doing well. Our MNC business had a great quarter. A lot of the channels that we sell through small business, like our insurance services products and our retirement services products are also doing quite well, so it's really not an across-the-board weakness. It does appear to be concentrated in places where we had the ACA phenomenon, if you will. And then how much of it is related to just the grow-over itself versus uncertainty about the political environment and the fact that people maybe are sitting and waiting, we do have some information around our pipeline, which is not the same as bookings. So bookings are bookings. And we are very clear about how we count revenues. I think Jan just went through the math, but we did a pipeline reports, like any sales force would have pipeline reports. And in our mid-market and our upmarket, we feel pretty good, like we did last quarter, about our pipeline. So if we say we feel pretty good and the sales are not materializing, that can only lead to one conclusion, which is the decision making is getting elongated or is slowing. And we can't quite put our finger on why, but that's exactly what the math is showing versus our pipeline right now.

是的。我認為──先提幾點意見，然後 Jan 或許可以補充一些他的看法。顯然，我們一直在與銷售主管們頻繁會面，我也一直在參加銷售會議，試圖了解——掌握市場動態。而且——看起來並非經濟問題，因為我們在低迷市場也取得了非常強勁的業績。我們的專業雇主組織（PEO）營運狀況依然良好。我們的跨國公司業務本季表現出色。我們透過小型企業銷售的許多管道，例如我們的保險服務產品和退休服務產品，也都做得相當不錯，所以這真的不是一個普遍的弱點。這種情況似乎集中在那些我們稱之為「平價醫療法案」現象的地區。然後，其中有多少與成長本身有關，又有多少與政治環境的不確定性以及人們可能正在等待有關？我們確實掌握了一些關於我們銷售管道的信息，但這與預訂情況不同。所以預訂就是預訂。我們對收入的計算方式非常明確。我認為 Jan 只是做了計算，但我們做了銷售管道報告，就像任何銷售團隊都會做銷售管道報告一樣。在中階市場和高端市場，我們對自身的產品線感覺相當不錯，就像上個季度一樣。所以，如果我們說我們感覺還不錯，但銷售額卻沒有達到預期，那隻能得出一個結論，那就是決策過程正在延長或放緩。我們雖然無法確切指出原因，但數學計算結果與我們目前的管道情況正好相反。

I think the only thing, Jim, just keep in mind our new guidance is down 5% to 7%. That's our expected new business bookings guidance, and I think Carlos captured it.

吉姆，我覺得你只需要記住一點，我們新的業績預期是下降 5% 到 7%。這就是我們對新業務預訂的預期，我認為卡洛斯準確地表達了這一點。

Understand. And then maybe as a follow-up, can you maybe just talk about the regulatory environment changes and what impact that could have on the PEO business? And specifically, what's your confidence level in that PEO business kind of sustaining double-digit growth for the foreseeable future?

理解。然後，作為後續問題，您能否談談監管環境的變化以及這些變化可能對 PEO 業務產生的影響？具體來說，您對 PEO 業務在可預見的未來保持兩位數成長的信心有多大？

Good question. Actually, let me finish also -- like I think you mentioned about tone in the sales force. And one of the kind of surprising things for me at least is the tone in the sales force is still very positive. We've done some things to try to encourage people not to "throw in the towel," because this is another factor that we have to -- that I have to worry about, right, that we are close to our end of our fiscal year. And we do have -- the way our incentive systems work, there's a big incentive, when you're exceeding plan, to over-exceed it. And likewise, there's a bit of an incentive to throw in the towel, if you will, if you're having a bad year. So we've done some things to try to -- and that may be why the sales force still remains upbeat, or it may be because they think these issues are transitory. It's very, again, hard just to put a scientific answer on it. But it feels positive in terms of the tone in the sales force. On the question about PEO and the regulatory environment, I think I mentioned multiple times also in the PEO over the last couple of years that it felt like we were getting some tailwind as a result of ACA, if for no other reason, because it was creating conversation opportunities, right? Because people are looking for a solution and they're looking at maybe different alternatives, and someone is able to talk to them about the PEO. And I think it's compelling value proposition, they're able to close the business. So I would put the PEO in the same category that we were watching, if you will. It's not quite the same in the sense that many of the clients in the PEO are not necessarily buying only ACA and were not rushing to make a decision of that magnitude only because of ACA. So I think there's a subtle but important difference. So I'm not convinced. And we certainly aren't seeing it in the numbers yet, that the PEO will have the same kind of difficulties, if you will, growing over. But it's definitely a more difficult sales environment for the PEO. But having said that, just again, we've said this multiple times, but the PEO has grown double digits for, I think it's 17 years now. And so I mean it's just a very compelling value proposition. And if for example there are changes in the regulatory landscape, some parts of our business may be affected, like our direct ACA product. If the entire thing gets repealed and the whole thing goes away, that would not be good news for that part of the business. But as we know now from what we're hearing of what's rolling through congress, there's not going to be a complete repeal. There's going to be some kind of new framework. Those types of new frameworks are always good for the PEO, because they tend to be more state-based regulation, which is what the PEO is really good at and what small companies are not very good at in having to deal with. And so I think that I would remain generally optimistic and positive -- more optimistic and more positive about the PEO.

問得好。其實，我也想補充一點──就像你剛才提到的銷售團隊的語氣問題。至少對我來說，比較令人驚訝的事情之一是銷售團隊的氛圍仍然非常積極。我們已經採取了一些措施來鼓勵人們不要“放棄”，因為這是我們不得不考慮的另一個因素——也是我不得不擔心的另一個因素，對吧，那就是我們的財政年度即將結束。我們的激勵機制確實存在這樣的問題：當你超出計畫完成任務時，就會有很大的動力去超越計畫完成任務。同樣地，如果你遭遇糟糕的一年，就很容易產生放棄的念頭。所以我們已經採取了一些措施來嘗試——這或許就是銷售團隊仍然保持樂觀的原因，也可能是因為他們認為這些問題是暫時的。再次強調，要用科學的語言來解釋這個問題非常困難。但就銷售團隊的氛圍而言，感覺是正面的。關於 PEO 和監管環境的問題，我想我在過去幾年裡也多次在 PEO 中提到過，感覺由於 ACA 的實施，我們獲得了一些順風，即使沒有其他原因，因為它創造了對話的機會，對吧？因為人們正在尋找解決方案，他們可能正在考慮不同的替代方案，而有人能夠與他們談論 PEO（專業雇主組織）。我認為這是一個極具吸引力的價值主張，他們能夠促成這筆交易。所以，如果你願意的話，我會把 PEO 歸類在我們正在關注的同一類人群中。從某種意義上說，情況並不完全相同，因為 PEO 中的許多客戶不一定只購買 ACA，他們也不是僅僅因為 ACA 就急於做出如此重大的決定。所以我認為這裡存在一個細微但重要的區別。所以我並不信服。而我們目前還沒有從數據中看出，PEO（專業雇主組織）在發展過程中會遇到同樣的困難。但對 PEO 而言，這無疑是一個更艱難的銷售環境。但話說回來，我們已經多次說過，PEO 已經連續 17 年保持兩位數的成長了。所以我的意思是，這確實是一個非常有吸引力的價值主張。例如，如果監管環境發生變化，我們業務的某些部分可能會受到影響，例如我們的直接 ACA 產品。如果整個協議被廢除，整個產業不復存在，那對這部分業務來說可不是什麼好消息。但從我們現在從國會正在審議的法案來看，這項法案不會被完全廢除。將會推出某種新的框架。這些類型的新框架對 PEO 來說總是有利的，因為它們往往是更多基於州的監管，而這正是 PEO 真正擅長的，也是小公司不太擅長處理的。因此，我認為我會保持整體樂觀和積極的態度——對 PEO 會更加樂觀和積極。

And our next question comes from James Berkley from Barclays.

下一個問題來自巴克萊銀行的詹姆斯·伯克利。

Just first, I just wanted to start off, I know you just touched on this a little bit, but a little more color would be helpful. I mean, I understand why businesses are holding off with regards to ACA solutions just given the uncertainty that you mentioned around health care and the U.S. as a whole, but at the end of the day, the law is the law, right? So kind of like at what point, if reform keeps being delayed, do you think employers will start to demand the solutions you're offering around ACA and just make other buying decisions in general that they may have been holding off on because of the uncertainty?

首先，我想說的是，我知道你只是稍微提到了這一點，但如果能更詳細一些就更好了。我的意思是，我理解為什麼企業在考慮 ACA 解決方案時會猶豫不決，正如你所提到的，醫療保健和整個美國都存在不確定性，但歸根結底，法律就是法律，對吧？那麼，如果改革繼續拖延，你認為雇主會在什麼時候開始要求採用你提供的關於《平價醫療法案》(ACA) 的解決方案，並做出他們可能因為不確定性而一直擱置的其他採購決定呢？

We were hoping that, that would happen 2 weeks ago or 3 weeks ago when the President said that he was done with it and that they're moving onto tax reform. And unfortunately, that was not -- it appears not to have been the case. So I think, in a -- we're watching the same news you're watching. We do have obviously some access to -- and some information that we get from people in Washington about what's happening on the hill and the regulation and so forth, but we have kind of similar information to what everyone else has. And these things always, when you're in the middle of them, feels like your feet are in cement. And that's how it feels like to us right now, and it's very frustrating, but these things pass. We will look back a year or 2 from now, and there will either be the existing ACA or some other version or some more complicated state regime or a complex regulatory framework at the state level. And we'll, hopefully, be looking back and seeing this as yet another opportunity for ADP to shine and to help our clients, but right now it is what it is and it doesn't feel great.

我們原本希望，兩週前或三週前總統宣布他已經完成了稅改，當他們正在著手進行稅制改革時，這種情況就會發生。但不幸的是，事實並非如此——似乎並非如此。所以我覺得，我們其實是在看你們正在看的同一則新聞。我們當然可以接觸到一些信息，也能從華盛頓的人那裡獲得一些關於國會山正在發生的事情、監管等等的信息，但我們掌握的信息和其他人掌握的信息大致相同。當你身處其中時，總是感覺像腳下踩水泥一樣動彈不得。這就是我們現在的感受，非常令人沮喪，但這些事情都會過去的。一兩年後，當我們回首往事時，要么會實施現有的《平價醫療法案》，要么會採用其他版本，要么會制定更複雜的州級制度，或者在州一級建立複雜的監管框架。希望將來回顧這段經歷時，能將其視為 ADP 再次大放異彩、幫助客戶的另一個機會，但就目前而言，情況就是這樣，感覺並不好。

Okay. And then just to follow up, when you think about the slide that you guys put out, just your long-term growth driver, the 7% to 9% that you think of the longer term; and I think you had like a 14% to 15% new business bookings and then 7% to 8% reduction from client losses, just how does that math change given the bookings guidance that you're seeing right now? And I know '18 is a little early, but just any color you can give us on how to think about how that 7% to 9% growth might be impacted for fiscal '18?

好的。然後，我想跟進一下，想想你們發布的幻燈片，你們的長期增長動力，你們認為長期增長幅度為 7% 到 9%；我認為你們的新業務預訂量增長了 14% 到 15%，然後客戶流失減少了 7% 到 8%，考慮到你們目前看到的預訂量預期，這些數字會如何變化？我知道現在談 2018 年還為時過早，但您能否就 2018 財年 7% 到 9% 的增長率可能受到的影響提供一些資訊？

Yes, our longer-term expectations for organic growth is 7% to 9%, as you correctly quoted, and it's driven by growth of new business bookings in the range of 8% to 10% growth. And it always was meant to cover a multiple-year type of cycle elongated and was not a commitment, obviously, as you see, realistically -- not a commitment to perform every single fiscal year. So we are not updating our long-term growth outlook at this point in time. But clearly, our new business bookings are falling a little bit behind, but relative to a 3- or a 4-year cycle of new business bookings, we still feel good about our growth opportunities.

是的，正如您所正確引用的，我們對有機成長的長期預期是 7% 到 9%，這主要得益於新業務預訂量 8% 到 10% 的成長。而且它一直都是為了涵蓋多年周期而製定的，顯然，正如你所看到的，它並不是一項承諾，實際上並不是承諾在每個財政年度都履行這項承諾。因此，我們目前暫不更新長期成長預期。但很顯然，我們的新業務預訂量略有落後，但相對於 3 年或 4 年的新業務預訂週期而言，我們仍然對我們的成長機會感到樂觀。

And our next question comes from Danyal Hussain from Morgan Stanley.

下一個問題來自摩根士丹利的丹尼爾·侯賽因。

I just wanted to understand the bookings a little bit more, so a two-part question, part math, part more subjective. So the math is just to get the full year guidance, it seems like you're implying potentially further deterioration in the fourth quarter, unless maybe the weighting from the third quarter is disproportionate. So maybe some clarification there. And then second part of that is maybe you can just talk about the cadence exiting the selling season and into April. Carlos, you already talked a little bit about hoping to see some change as of 2 weeks ago but not seeing it, but maybe just a little bit more color.

我只是想更了解預訂情況，所以問題分為兩部分，一部分是數學題，一部分是主觀題。所以，計算結果只是為了得出全年的業績指引，你似乎暗示第四季業績可能會進一步惡化，除非第三季的權重過高。所以或許需要對此做一些澄清。其次，或許你可以談談銷售旺季結束到四月的節奏變化。卡洛斯，你兩週前就說過，希望看到一些變化，但並沒有看到，也許只是希望顏色能再豐富一些。

Yes. I think you're right that the third quarter is disproportionate. So we have a lot of disproportionate number of dollar sales in the third quarter compared to the entire year. And that's just the way the seasonality has always worked. So the fourth quarter would not be materially different in terms of the momentum or this kind of 5% to 7% down range. It's in that ballpark. So there's really no real news I think, there. I think the cadence in terms of the exit for the -- the one thing that we're grappling with is, obviously, we have the realities, right, of the political environment and we're hoping that there will be resolution here relatively soon. Our fiscal year obviously starts on July 1. We're hoping to have some kind of -- we thought 2 or 3 weeks ago, we had clarity. So we're hoping that we get that behind us and we get some clarity. Because we have lots of other products, we have lots of other parts of our business that are performing well, and we just want to get on with it, right, and be able to continue to sell the other suite of products that we have available, both in the midmarket and also in the upmarket. So I think, as I mentioned before, it feels like exiting the year, our pipelines are robust. It feels like the tone and the confidence in the sales force is high. But the results are the results. And I think Jan and I live in the world of reality, not in the world of make-believe. And so we're being cautious and careful but it's hard not to be optimistic, because the economy is picking up, it feels like. The labor markets are tightening. And we have some very compelling value propositions in that kind of environment where employers now are going to be, "engaging in a war for talent" again, which we haven't seen. These things -- we forget that 10 years ago, there was a real issue in terms of finding people. And we benefited back then from that kind of environment in terms of our HCM solutions; and we're hoping that we're entering a period here where all of our solutions, the entire suite becomes very compelling as client become focused on attracting people and holding onto the people that they have. And we see all kinds of metrics in our own numbers and in the government data around higher voluntary turnover, higher wage growth, lots of signals that the labor markets are tightening, and I think our value propositions are very compelling in that kind of environment. So we just want to get this uncertainty and these delays and this slow decision-making behind us so that we can get onto the business.

是的。我認為你說得對，第三季的比例確實不合理。因此，與全年相比，第三季的美元銷售額不成比例地高。季節性變化一直都是這樣發生的。因此，第四季在動能或5%至7%的下跌幅度方面不會有實質的差異。差不多就是那個範圍。所以我覺得這方面其實沒什麼真正的新聞。我認為，就退出而言，我們正在努力解決的一個問題是——顯然，我們必須面對政治環境的現實，我們希望這個問題能盡快解決。我們的財政年度顯然是從7月1日開始的。我們希望能夠──我們以為在兩三週前，情況已經明朗了。所以我們希望這件事能盡快過去，讓情況明朗化。因為我們還有很多其他產品，我們業務的許多其他部分都表現良好，我們只想繼續前進，對吧，並能夠繼續銷售我們現有的其他產品系列，無論是在中端市場還是高端市場。所以我覺得，正如我之前提到的，感覺今年即將結束，我們的產品線非常強勁。感覺銷售團隊的士氣和信心都很高。但結果就是結果。我認為我和簡生活在現實世界中，而不是在虛構的世界裡。因此，我們保持謹慎小心，但很難不抱持樂觀態度，因為感覺經濟正在復甦。勞動市場正在趨緊。在這種環境下，雇主們將“再次展開人才爭奪戰”，而我們之前從未見過這種情況，因此我們有一些非常有吸引力的價值主張。這些事情——我們忘記了10年前，在招募方面確實存在一個問題。當時，我們的人力資本管理解決方案就受益於這種環境；我們希望，隨著客戶越來越注重吸引人才和留住現有人才，我們所有的解決方案，整個套件，都將變得極具吸引力。我們從自身的數據和政府數據中都看到了各種指標，例如更高的自願離職率、更高的工資增長，以及勞動力市場趨緊的諸多跡象，我認為在這種環境下，我們的價值主張非常有吸引力。所以，我們只想消除這種不確定性、這種延誤和這種緩慢的決策過程，以便我們能夠專注於業務本身。

And maybe just I'll add a comment to this on the outlook, which Carlos described correctly, kind of roughly in line with the fourth quarter and the full year guidance. But we'll also continue to put our dollars where our statements are and the investments into the sales force, the incentives that we're bringing out to get the sales force ready and the hiring and preparing for growth in the next year are actually fully underway and have actually to some degree impacted our third quarter and fourth quarter results, because we believe we have that opportunity going forward. So we're preparing for growth in the future.

我或許可以就前景發表一些評論，卡洛斯描述得沒錯，前景大致與第四季和全年預期一致。但我們也將繼續把資金投入到我們所說的各項工作中，對銷售團隊的投資，我們為使銷售團隊做好準備而推出的激勵措施，以及為明年增長所做的招聘和準備工作，實際上都已全面展開，並在一定程度上影響了我們第三季度和第四季度的業績，因為我們相信我們未來有機會實現這一目標。所以我們正在為未來的發展做好準備。

Okay. And then just a question on retention. I just wanted to clarify. So it sounded like some of the higher attrition is within the upmarket and was partly related to migration. But at the same time, you're taking a more measured pace with your migration relative to what you do with Workforce Now. So just trying to square that and see maybe where any surprises came versus expectations?

好的。然後還有一個關於員工留存率的問題。我只是想澄清一下。聽起來，較高的員工流動率似乎出現在高端市場，部分與人口遷移有關。但同時，相較於 Workforce Now 而言，你們的遷移步伐更加穩健。所以，我只是想弄清楚這些，看看哪些地方出現了意料之外的情況，與預期不符？

Maybe one's connected to other, so -- and maybe not. Because I think the reality is that the variability, and I think is -- we've had -- I think we're very sensitive now, obviously, to retention, for all the right reasons. Because we went through a really difficult period last year. But we've had variability in our retention forever at ADP, because it's a different metric than our other metrics and it can be volatile. And as an example, in the upmarket, you can have 1 or 2 large clients that can actually move that number -- 1 or 2 clients in the upmarket that can move the number for the upmarket and for ADP. And you saw a little bit of that in the first quarter where we lost that large government contract in the business we ended up selling or were in the process of selling, that had a material impact on our overall retention for the first quarter. So this is not -- this wasn't a one large client like that, but it was a handful of clients. And so this business -- our upmarket business is a little less than 20% of our overall revenues. So just to kind of put things in context. And it's 2,000 to 3,000 clients. And a couple, literally, 3, 4 client losses in a particular quarter can really move the numbers. So I'm just trying to help kind of frame the discussion, because at least for now, I'm not ready to concede that we have a permanent -- we don't talk about forward guidance on retention, but this is a third quarter issue for now.

也許兩者之間存在著聯繫，也許沒有。因為我認為現實情況是，這種變化是存在的，而且我認為——我們已經——我認為我們現在顯然對員工留存率非常敏感，這是出於所有正確的原因。因為我們去年經歷了一段非常艱難的時期。但 ADP 的客戶留存率一直存在波動，因為它與其他指標不同，而且波動性較大。例如，在高端市場，可能有 1 或 2 個大客戶能夠真正推動該數字的成長——高端市場中的 1 或 2 個客戶能夠推動高端市場和 ADP 的數位成長。在第一季度，我們看到了這一點，因為我們失去了那份大型政府合同，而我們最終出售或正在出售的業務也受到了影響，這對我們第一季的整體客戶留存率產生了重大影響。所以這不是——這不是一個大客戶，而是幾個客戶。因此，這項業務——我們的高端業務——占我們總收入的不到 20%。所以，我只是想把事情放在背景中來解釋一下。客戶數量在 2000 到 3000 人之間。一個季度內，即使只有三、四個客戶流失，也足以對業績產生巨大影響。所以我只是想幫助大家更好地理解討論的框架，因為至少目前，我還沒有準備好承認我們已經有了永久性的——我們不談論員工留任率的前瞻性指引，但這目前是第三季度的問題。

Our next question comes from Lisa Ellis from Bernstein.

我們的下一個問題來自伯恩斯坦公司的麗莎·艾利斯。

One more on the topic of the day, retention. So the upmarket dynamic you're describing, I guess, does feel like it's a little bit new. Is there a change in the competitive landscape in the upmarket? Or what -- is there anything you can identify that triggered, I guess, this handful of clients this quarter? Or is it just somewhat anomalous?

關於今天的主題－客戶留存，還有一點需要說明。所以，你所描述的這種高端市場動態，確實感覺有點新穎。高端市場的競爭格局是否改變了？或者說—您能否指出是什麼原因導致了本季這幾位客戶的流失？或者這只是有點反常現象？

It's a good question. And I think that you'd be generally, I think, right, that despite the fact that we do have volatility across quarters, we have generally not paid a lot of attention to it, because over the course of kind of rolling 12 months or even in terms of years, calendar years or even fiscal years, our retention in the upmarket has been pretty stable. I mean it's a sticky business. It doesn't change a whole lot. So I'd say this quarter was -- it'd be -- it's fair to say that it's a little bit anomalous. And I think to answer the other part of your question, we don't see it as being related any change in the competitive environment. Now as always, in 2 or 3 years or in 2 or 3 quarters, I may be singing a different tune, but we have a lot of data around the reasons for the losses, where -- what platform the losses were on, were they new technology, old technology, and what types of product the client had. And I think when we put all that information together, which Jan obviously -- and I obviously, spent a lot of time anticipating this being one of the topics of the day, and we spent a lot of time on this issue and looked at the names of the clients, who they are, what platform they were on. And we don't see any change in the competitive environment. I think we've said before that there isn't any one competitor that causes us a majority of our losses and, likewise, there isn't any one competitor where we take the majority of our business from. It's spread out all over the landscape and it remains that way. For some of our competitors that might be different because of their size, where they may have a heavy concentration of taking clients from one particular company. In our case, that is not the case.

這是個好問題。我認為你的說法總體上是對的，儘管我們確實存在季度間的波動，但我們通常並沒有過多關注它，因為從滾動的 12 個月甚至幾年（日曆年甚至財政年度）來看，我們在高端市場的留存率一直相當穩定。我的意思是，這事兒很棘手。變化不大。所以我覺得這個季度——可以這麼說——有點反常。至於你問題的另一部分，我認為與競爭環境的任何變化都無關。現在，像往常一樣，2 或 3 年後，或者 2 或 3 個季度後，我的觀點可能會有所不同，但我們有很多關於虧損原因的數據，包括虧損發生在哪個平台上，是新技術還是舊技術，以及客戶擁有什麼類型的產品。我認為，當我們把所有這些資訊匯總起來時，Jan 和我顯然都花了很多時間預料到這將是當天的一個主題，我們花了很多時間研究這個問題，查看了客戶的名稱、他們是誰、他們使用的平台。我們沒有看到競爭環境有任何變化。我想我們之前說過，沒有哪個競爭對手給我們造成了大部分損失，同樣，也沒有哪個競爭對手從我們那裡奪取了大部分業務。它遍布整個地區，而且一直如此。對於我們的一些競爭對手來說，情況可能會有所不同，因為他們的規模較大，可能會大量從某一家公司搶走客戶。就我們而言，情況並非如此。

And maybe a tiny bit of further detail, Lisa, is when we look at our competitive position against this multitude of competitors in the quarter, some competitive positions have improved and some have not. And that is a fairly typical thing we see each of these competitors evolving quarter-by-quarter up and down. So when we say, the general competitive dynamic we feel have not changed, it's rooted in this analysis and we see in some cases we have improved, in some cases we have not. So it a mixed bag, obviously, and -- but we believe it hasn't changed.

麗莎，或許還可以補充一點細節：當我們審視本季我們與眾多競爭對手的競爭地位時，有些競爭地位有所改善，有些則沒有。我們看到這些競爭對手的業績每季都有起伏波動，這相當典型。所以，當我們說我們認為整體競爭格局沒有改變時，這是基於這項分析得出的結論，我們看到在某些情況下我們有所改進，在某些情況下我們沒有改進。所以情況顯然是喜憂參半，而且──但我們認為情況並沒有改變。

Yes. And I think the -- I didn't maybe answer directly your question about how does this square with our upgrade or migrations strategy. And I think, the things really are somewhat connected in a maybe an odd way that we think that, because that we know what clients we lost and what platforms they were on, that it makes it even more compelling for us to move our clients onto our newer technologies. On the other hand, we know that these movements are complex and that the clients need to help us, and they need to be involved, they need to cooperate. And so finding the right clients in the right place at the right time is just different than it was in the midmarket and in the downmarket. But I think it heightens our confidence that it's the right thing to do over time.

是的。而且我覺得——我可能沒有直接回答你關於這與我們的升級或遷移策略如何契合的問題。而且我認為，這些事情在某種程度上確實存在聯繫，也許這種聯繫很奇怪，因為我們知道我們失去了哪些客戶以及他們使用的是哪些平台，這讓我們更有動力將客戶轉移到我們的新技術上。另一方面，我們知道這些行動很複雜，客戶需要幫助我們，他們需要參與，他們需要合作。因此，在合適的時間、合適的地點找到合適的客戶，與在中端市場和低端市場找到合適的客戶截然不同。但我認為這會增強我們的信心，讓我們相信隨著時間的推移，這樣做是正確的。

Okay. And I guess the follow-up. As you've been -- we've been living with you through the Workforce Now migrations in the midmarket, I know you've consistently said that the retention levels are higher on the migrated clients and so there's sort of this nirvana we're going to get to when the migrations are done where retentions should naturally go back up. Are we though now facing a more protracted period in the upmarket kind of going through the same thing?

好的。我想接下來會怎樣。正如您一直以來所說——我們一直陪伴您經歷 Workforce Now 在中端市場的遷移，我知道您一直表示，遷移後的客戶留存率更高，因此，當遷移完成後，我們將達到一種理想狀態，留存率自然會回升。我們現在是否正面臨高端市場經歷類似情況的更漫長時期？

So I think the nirvana, it does -- from what Jan and I were looking at just over the last couple of days, the retention rates on our current version Workforce Now strategic platform are extremely high. And we're very happy with them, and we have a lot of volume on it already. So that feels like it worked out the way we had hoped, and we had anticipated. And with now, the downmarket on our new strategic platform with retention rates that frankly have improved dramatically over the last couple of years. And with our Workforce Now migrations being completed by the end of this calendar year, and with 20% of our base remaining in the upmarket, we're feeling good about where we are. But the answer to your question is, yes, we have a protracted migration effort in the upmarket. It's the right thing to do. We're going to do it, and we're going to do it as well as we can and as quickly as we can without causing damage and disruption to our clients. But we're in a very different position from where we were 4 or 5 years ago when we had 10% of our clients on our strategic platforms that are versionless and cloud where there is no further migration and there is no further disruption. So it's a very, very different place. And it hasn't felt good getting here, but it feels pretty good now.

所以我認為，從我和 Jan 在過去幾天觀察的情況來看，我們目前版本的 Workforce Now 策略平台的留存率非常高，這確實達到了理想狀態。我們對這些產品非常滿意，目前銷售已經相當可觀了。所以感覺事情的發展正如我們所希望和預期的那樣。現在，我們新的策略平檯面向的是下行市場，坦白說，過去幾年裡，用戶留存率已經大幅提高。隨著我們的 Workforce Now 遷移工作在今年年底完成，而我們 20% 的客戶群仍然留在高端市場，我們對目前的狀況感到滿意。但你的問題的答案是肯定的，我們在高端市場確實開展了一項曠日持久的遷移工作。這是應該做的。我們會做到，而且會盡我們所能做到最好、最快，同時不會對我們的客戶造成損害和乾擾。但我們現在的處境與 4 或 5 年前截然不同，當時我們只有 10% 的客戶使用我們的策略平台，這些平台是無版本的雲端平台，不會再進行遷移，也不會再造成任何中斷。所以這裡和以前完全不一樣了。走到今天這一步並不容易，但現在感覺好多了。

Okay. And maybe on -- quickly, just on a more positive note, I know you've had the reporting and benchmarking modules out in the market now, at least for a few months. How are they doing? How is the uptake?

好的。或許可以順便一提——簡單來說，我知道你們的報告和基準測試模組已經上市幾個月了。他們最近怎麼樣？接受度如何？

It's going well. We -- again, that's another one -- back to the discussion about what's happening with the labor markets and the economy in general. Those are products that are useful no matter what. But in the kind of environment that we're entering into, like helping people make sure that they're paying people the right amounts, that they know where their turnover is in comparison to benchmarks. That type of information is very, very useful to an HR leader or to a CEO in making good people decisions on a go-forward basis. So that's another example of something that -- the conversations for the last 2 or 3 years were about ACA. I think the conversations for the next 2 or 3 years is going to be about what's happening with your workforce, what's the turnover rate, how are you paying people. And I think these benchmark and analytics tools are going to facilitate those discussions and hopefully those sales, because those are conversations openers or starters in order to convince clients to come to our product suite, which is I think unique in the sense that it has these data and analytics benchmarks.

一切順利。我們——這又是另一個話題——回到關於勞動市場和整體經濟狀況的討論。這些都是無論如何都很有用的產品。但在我們即將進入的這種環境中，例如幫助人們確保他們支付給員工正確的金額，讓他們知道他們的營業額與基準相比如何。這類資訊對於人力資源主管或執行長在未來做出良好的人事決策非常非常有用。所以，這又是一個例子，說明過去兩三年來的討論都圍繞著《平價醫療法案》（ACA）展開。我認為未來兩三年的討論重點將是你們的員工隊伍狀況、人員流動率以及你們的薪酬待遇。我認為這些基準和分析工具將有助於這些討論，並有望促進這些銷售，因為這些工具可以開啟對話，從而說服客戶使用我們的產品套件。我認為我們的產品套件的獨特之處在於它具有這些數據和分析基準。

(Operator Instructions) And our next question will come from Jeff Silber from BMO Capital Markets.

（操作員說明）接下來的問題將來自 BMO 資本市場的 Jeff Silber。

A few times you've mentioned the uncertainty and you thought it might have dissipated a few weeks ago and we had a little bit more clarity on ACA. Is the client uncertainty and the elongated decision-making, you think it's solely related to ACA issues? Are there just other things going on in the current environment that clients are worried about?

您曾多次提到這種不確定性，您認為這種不確定性可能在幾週前已經消散，我們對《平價醫療法案》(ACA) 的了解也更加清晰了。您認為顧客的不確定性和漫長的決策過程是否完全與《平價醫療法案》(ACA) 有關？客戶是否仍擔心當前環境下的其他問題？

Again, I'll just say one more time, it's impossible for us -- we don't really have like a chart that kind of follows that. So this is really more on intuition, and I'll let Jan comment as well. But there is -- it's not just ACA that's creating uncertainty. There is -- I think the administration has put -- has asked the Labor Department to review the overtime rules, for example, that were about to be issued. I think there were pay equity rules that were coming out around EEOC reporting that are now under review as well. The fiduciary rule, which was intended to go through the -- and which would have affected our retirement services business has also been put under review. And so I think there are pockets of uncertainty in addition to ACA. And some of them happen to be related to our core business, which is HCM. And so if you're selling, for example, an ERP suite, some of that uncertainty may not really affect that decision-making. But if we were involved in a sales process where you had a large hourly workforce and many of them -- sorry, a large salaried workforce that, because of the new rules, was going to now be hourly and those hours needed to be tracked and you need to be in compliance with the FLSA. That sales cycle has probably been elongated as a client stops and goes back to focusing on whatever they were focusing on before that trigger event. So I think there are a few other things that are probably not helpful. But again, it's hard for us to put a specific measure on each one of them.

我再說一遍，這對我們來說是不可能的——我們實際上沒有那種圖表可以參考。所以這比較是憑直覺，我也讓 Jan 來發表一下看法。但事實並非如此——造成不確定性的不僅是《平價醫療法案》。我認為，政府已經要求勞工部審查即將發布的加班規則。我認為，在平等就業機會委員會 (EEOC) 報告方面，也推出了一些薪資公平規則，這些規則目前也正在接受審查。受託人規則原本計劃通過－並且會影響我們的退休服務業務，目前也正在接受審查。所以我認為，除了《平價醫療法案》（ACA）之外，還存在一些不確定因素。其中一些恰好與我們的核心業務—人力資本管理 (HCM) 相關。因此，例如，如果您銷售的是 ERP 套件，那麼某些不確定性可能不會真正影響您的決策。但是，如果我們參與的銷售流程中，你有大量的計時員工，其中許多人——抱歉，是大量的領固定工資員工，由於新規，現在要按小時計薪，這些工時需要被跟踪，你需要遵守《公平勞動標準法》(FLSA)。銷售週期可能會因此延長，因為客戶會停止購買，重新專注於觸發事件發生之前他們關注的事情。所以我覺得還有一些其他的事情可能沒什麼幫助。但是，我們很難對它們中的每一個進行具體的衡量。

Okay, I understand. And then just one, I guess, numbers or model-related question. When do we anniversary the bump in bookings from all the ACA-driven business?

好的，我明白了。然後，我想就問一個與數字或模型相關的問題。我們何時慶祝ACA推動的所有業務帶來的預訂量激增？

Well, next fiscal year, we are clearly half -- still a little bit of grow-over but not that material. So next year should be a clean year relative to the ACA-related grow-over. Just a further clarification. The -- we have tried to illustrate this a few times. With the ACA core module that we have sold came off an incremental fuller bundled sales that particularly included benefit administration modules. So the impact of the Affordable Care Act had been broader than the direct impact of the ACA-related sales, which makes it a little bit harder to predict. And as a consequence, our client [may switch] typically provides, ADP-wide, about 50% of our incremental new business bookings come from selling more to existing clients. And that dynamic has now changed because we have fuller bundles now, in particular in the midmarket. And so we started to transition to drive new logo growth in the mid-market, and those channels have to readjust a little bit as a consequence of the ACA surge that had driven a more complete bundle, in particular in the midmarket. So that transition is still present obviously next year, but we feel that we have great strategies in place to replace basically that upsell strategy with a more aggressive new logo sales. And as we have clarified, it is a disappointing quarter but, despite our down guidance for new business bookings, it will be still our second highest sales year ever for ADP. So keep that in mind.

嗯，下一個財政年度，我們顯然只完成了一半——還有一些成長空間，但並不大。因此，明年應該會是與《平價醫療法案》相關的過渡期比較順利的一年。再補充說明一下。我們已經嘗試過幾次來說明這一點。我們銷售的 ACA 核心模組源自於更全面的捆綁銷售，其中特別包括福利管理模組。因此，《平價醫療法案》的影響範圍比與該法案相關的銷售額的直接影響範圍更廣，這使得預測變得有些困難。因此，我們的客戶（可能會轉換）通常提供，在整個 ADP 範圍內，我們約 50% 的新增新業務預訂來自向現有客戶銷售更多產品。而現在這種局面已經發生了變化，因為我們現在有了更全面的產品組合，尤其是在中階市場。因此，我們開始轉型，以推動中端市場的新標誌成長，而由於 ACA 的激增，這些管道不得不進行一些調整，因為 ACA 推動了更全面的捆綁銷售，尤其是在中端市場。所以，這種轉變顯然明年仍然存在，但我們認為我們已經制定了一個很好的策略，基本上可以用更積極的新客戶銷售策略來取代追加銷售策略。正如我們已經闡明的那樣，這是一個令人失望的季度，但儘管我們下調了新業務預訂的預期，這仍然將是 ADP 有史以來銷售額第二高的一年。所以要記住這一點。

Our next question comes from Gary Bisbee from RBC Capital.

下一個問題來自加拿大皇家銀行資本市場的 Gary Bisbee。

This is actually Jay Hanna on for Gary today. Kind of going off that last comment. Going forward, should -- given the struggles with client retention this quarter and the now expected decline in bookings, should we expect an even greater spend on sales force additions going forward?

今天為加里主持節目的是傑伊漢納。有點像是根據上一條評論說的。展望未來，鑑於本季客戶留存率下降以及預訂量預計減少，我們是否應該預期未來在銷售人員擴充方面投入更多資金？

Well, it's funny you should mention that, because I think Jan did address -- and I'll let him, if he wants to give more detail, which we probably don't, because we're not giving FY '18 guidance yet. But we're definitely not taking our foot off of the accelerator. So this is a -- we obviously could change our minds a quarter or 2 from now, but our position right now is -- and I think we mentioned it in Jan's -- comes from maintaining our investments in service, implementation, et cetera. And in some cases, we've actually accelerated or increased some of our investments. I think in the sales organization is a place where I would say we've added expense. And the irony is that the underlying sales expense gets helped by weaker sales because our commissions are lower and so forth, but there's a lot of things that go into that sales expense bucket, including headcount costs and commissions. And so it's safe to say that our commission expense and our variable expense is helping us from a cost standpoint. But we -- instead of taking that all to the bottom line, we have chosen to invest because, again, we believe our story, which is that, nothing fundamentally has changed in the economy, which is typically what really affects ADP, which by the way, affects us less than most because of the nature of our business model. But if we saw a recession coming or a slowdown coming, we would have to start thinking hard about our expense levels. And that's not where we are right now.

嗯，你提到這一點真有意思，因為我認為 Jan 確實談到了——如果他想提供更多細節，我會讓他說的，但我們可能不想，因為我們還沒有給出 2018 財年的業績指引。但我們絕對不會放鬆警戒。所以，我們顯然可以在一兩個季度後改變主意，但我們目前的立場是——我想我們在 1 月也提到過——源於我們對服務、實施等方面的持續投資。在某些情況下，我們實際上已經加快或增加了一些投資。我認為銷售部門是我們增加開支的地方。諷刺的是，由於佣金減少等原因，銷售額下降反而有助於降低基礎銷售費用，但銷售費用包含許多項目，包括人力成本和佣金。因此可以肯定地說，從成本角度來看，我們的佣金支出和變動支出對我們有幫助。但是，我們並沒有把所有因素都考慮在內，而是選擇繼續投資，因為我們相信我們的觀點，那就是經濟的根本狀況並沒有改變，而經濟狀況通常是真正影響 ADP 的因素，順便說一句，由於我們商業模式的性質，經濟狀況對我們的影響比大多數公司都要小。但如果我們預見到經濟衰退或經濟放緩即將到來，我們就必須開始認真考慮我們的支出水準。而我們現在的情況並非如此。

Just a quick reminder, as one of the advantages of ADP is that we serve such a broad range of segments and markets in the U.S. and globally, in multinational, and so as we had our challenges in the mid and upmarket, we continued to perform tremendously in the downmarket, in the PEO, multinational. So there's a broad range of products that are gaining share and really driving success. So obviously, in that balance, our investments into sales signal our confidence for ultimate success in distribution.

簡單提醒一下，ADP 的優勢之一是我們服務於美國乃至全球的眾多細分市場和跨國公司，因此，儘管我們在中高端市場遇到了一些挑戰，但我們在低端市場、PEO 和跨國公司領域仍然表現出色。因此，有許多產品正在獲得市場份額，並真正推動了成功。因此很明顯，從這個角度來看，我們對銷售的投入表明了我們對最終在分銷方面取得成功的信心。

Our next question comes from Mark Marcon from RW Baird.

下一個問題來自 RW Baird 公司的 Mark Marcon。

A couple of product-related questions. With regards to the higher ratings in terms of the G2 for Workforce Now. At what point do you start pivoting from migration of existing clients to proactively selling Workforce Now to clients that aren't currently utilizing ADP at all in the midmarket? That's the first question. And then secondly, can you tell us where we are with regards to Vantage in terms of the optimization of that solution? And when you would feel really good about pushing that?

幾個與產品相關的問題。關於 Workforce Now 在 G2 評級中獲得的較高評分。在中端市場，何時應該開始從現有客戶的遷移轉向主動向目前完全未使用 ADP 的客戶銷售 Workforce Now？這是第一個問題。其次，您能否告訴我們，在 Vantage 解決方案的最佳化方面，我們目前處於什麼階段？什麼時候才會覺得可以全力以赴呢？

So I think the answer on the Workforce Now question is about 3 or 4 months ago. Because we've -- I think Jan just alluded to that, that we've kind of tilted our focus now more towards new [logo] growth and new share from kind of the traditional approach of -- doesn't mean we won't take additional modules and incremental business. But this is a fairly significant change from a sales force mentality standpoint where we were for several years, focused on upgrades and on incremental sales of other modules to the existing client base as we upgraded them, combined with selling something called ACA, which to some extent, was a significant tailwind. So we're moving into a different environment. Luckily, we have other tailwinds like great products like you just mentioned with Workforce Now. And we can see, for example, our client satisfaction scores improving. We can see our client retentions scores on our strategic platform being very, very high. Higher than we've had overall for the midmarket for in the -- historically. So there's a lot of positive signs that we want to step on the accelerator and proactively sell our solution just as you mentioned. And I think we kind of got that religion, if you will, I don't know, 4 to 6 months ago. And we've been retooling in terms of -- I think Jan alluded to the channels. I think if you're going to go after incremental new logos, not just add-on business, that requires channel partnerships. And I think there's a lot of efforts underway to build the same kind of success we have in our downmarket now with our midmarket channel partners. And so the answer is we're on that and we believe that, that will get traction over time. On the question about Vantage, vantage continues to do quite well. And there, again, our satisfaction scores for implementation have improved dramatically over the last several quarters as we invested in that process of the implementation process. We've gone, I think, we have like almost 350 live clients versus I think, we were at 220 at the beginning of the fiscal year. We have I think 500 sold, so we have a decent pipeline that needs to be implemented. And I don't mean pipeline -- those are actually signed contracts, 500 signed contracts. And so we feel pretty good about our Vantage platform. I think it compares really well and competes very well with our upmarket competitors. But it's -- you all see the same thing we see. It's a very competitive environment in the upmarket. And there are a lot of solutions. But we like what we have. And I think we're competing very effectively.

所以我認為 Workforce Now 問題的答案大概是 3 到 4 個月前。因為我們——我想 Jan 剛才也提到了這一點——我們現在的重點已經從傳統的增長方式轉向了新的 [logo] 增長和新的市場份額——但這並不意味著我們不會接受額外的模組和增量業務。但從銷售人員的心態來看，這是一個相當大的改變。多年來，我們一直專注於升級，並在升級現有客戶群的同時，逐步向他們銷售其他模組，再加上銷售一種稱為 ACA 的產品，這在某種程度上是一個重要的順風。所以我們要進入一個不同的環境。幸運的是，我們還有其他有利因素，例如像您剛才提到的 Workforce Now 這樣的優秀產品。例如，我們可以看到客戶滿意度評分正在提高。我們可以看到，我們策略平台上的客戶留存率非常非常高。比我們歷史上中端市場的整體水準要高。所以有很多積極的跡象表明，我們希望加快步伐，積極推銷我們的解決方案，正如您所提到的。我覺得我們大概在四到六個月前，有了那種信仰，或者說，一種信念。我們一直在進行調整，例如——我想 Jan 提到過管道方面。我認為，如果你想要的是逐步增加新客戶，而不僅僅是增加業務，那就需要通路合作夥伴關係。我認為，我們正在努力與中端市場通路合作夥伴攜手，以期在低端市場取得與目前相同的成功。所以答案是，我們正在努力，並相信隨著時間的推移，這將會取得進展。關於 Vantage 的問題，Vantage 的表現仍然相當不錯。再一次，在過去的幾個季度裡，隨著我們對實施過程的投入，我們的實施滿意度評分也大幅提高。我認為，我們現在有近 350 個活躍客戶，而本財年開始時，我們的活躍客戶數量只有 220 個。我想我們已經賣出了 500 件，所以我們有一個不錯的銷售管道需要落實。我指的不是管道——那些是實際簽署的合同，500份已簽署的合約。因此，我們對我們的 Vantage 平台感到非常滿意。我認為它的性能非常出色，能夠很好地與我們的高端競爭對手相提並論。但你們看到的其實和我們看到的一樣。高端市場競爭非常激烈。有很多解決辦法。但我們喜歡我們現在擁有的。我認為我們的競爭非常有效。

Great. And just a quick follow-up. With regards to the dual Service platforms. Do you still think that by the end of the calendar '18, you'll have completed that transition to the new Service platforms?

偉大的。還有一個後續問題。關於雙服務平台。您是否仍然認為到 2018 年底，您將完成向新服務平台的過渡？

Yes. You're never complete on operations, Mark, but the majority of our work is actually this fiscal year and next fiscal year. So in next fiscal year, I'd still anticipate some dual ops. We haven't determined what that will be specifically, but there's still transitioning happening. But the vast majority relative to those 3 new locations and the 2 existing ones should be completed in '18. But our service strategy is, obviously, organic and evolving and we're going to continue to drive improvements but '18 is a big year still for us.

是的。馬克，營運工作永遠不會一帆風順，但我們的大部分工作實際上都集中在本財年和下一財年。因此，在下一個財政年度，我仍然預計會有一些雙重營運。我們還沒有確定具體會是什麼，但過渡仍在進行中。但相對於這 3 個新地點和 2 個現有地點而言，絕大多數項目應該會在 2018 年完成。但我們的服務策略顯然是有機發展和不斷演進的，我們將繼續推動改進，但 2018 年對我們來說仍然是重要的一年。

Our next question comes from Bryan Keane from Deutsche Bank.

下一個問題來自德意志銀行的布萊恩·基恩。

Just 2 quick clarifications. Just on the retention. Do we know where these clients are going? Are they bringing it in-house, the service? Just curious.

僅需兩點澄清。僅就保留率而言。我們知道這些客戶要去哪裡嗎？他們打算把這項服務收歸公司內部嗎？只是好奇而已。

Yes. The sources of our business and the sources of our losses is something that we track. And both have very similar dynamics. It's fragmented and there's no clear trend to it. And so they go to a variety of different targets. Some in the ERP space, some to our traditional competitors, some to other solutions. So it is a wide range. Some is driven by their M&A activity, moving too on. So the last reasons and their targets is varied as -- the sources of our businesses are varied and as a consequence we feel the competitive dynamic has not fundamentally changed as we observe it.

是的。我們會追蹤業務來源和虧損來源。兩者的動態特性非常相似。它很分散，沒有明顯的趨勢。因此，他們會攻擊各種不同的目標。一部分客戶流失到了 ERP 領域，一部分流失到了我們的傳統競爭對手，一部分流失到了其他解決方案。所以範圍很廣。部分原因是他們的併購活動，以及隨之而來的改變。因此，最後的原因及其目標各不相同——我們的業務來源多種多樣，因此我們觀察到，競爭動態並沒有根本性的變化。

And we did look at that. I happened to look at it last night. I asked for a little more detail in terms of our upmarket losses. And unfortunately, I didn't compare the same "top losses" to last year's third quarter top losses. But when we looked at this year's third quarter losses, there were a couple that went back in-house that were using our, for example, our COS solution, which is our BPO solution upmarket. And I guess they decided to go back and rebuild internal capabilities and use their internal technology.

我們確實研究過這個問題。我昨晚碰巧看到了。我要求提供更多關於我們高端市場虧損的細節。遺憾的是，我沒有將今年的「最大虧損」與去年第三季的最大虧損進行比較。但當我們查看今年第三季的虧損情況時，發現有幾家公司重新採用了內部流程，而這些公司之前使用的是我們的 COS 解決方案，這是我們面向高端市場的 BPO 解決方案。我猜他們決定重整旗鼓，重建內部能力，並利用內部技術。

But I think Jan described it well, because I mean, we sound elusive when we give you that answer, but it's really all over the board. There was really no -- and maybe that's because of our size. Because again, I just to continue to emphasize, some of our competitors would have a different story just because of the differences potentially in terms of size. But in our case, we -- it would almost be easier if we had one specific place or one specific reason, but it's unfortunately it's not that way, neither in the upmarket nor for ADP overall. So there's no discernible pattern across -- even in the place where we have the concentration of losses in this quarter, we can't see a discernible pattern.

但我認為 Jan 的描述很到位，因為我的意思是，當我們給出這個答案時，聽起來很含糊，但實際上情況千差萬別。確實沒有——也許是因為我們的規模較小。因為我想再次強調，我們的一些競爭對手可能會有不同的說法，這只是因為規模上的差異。但就我們而言，如果我們有一個具體的地方或一個具體的原因，那就容易多了，但不幸的是，事實並非如此，無論是在高端市場還是對於 ADP 整體而言都是如此。因此，即使在本季度損失集中的地區，也看不到任何明顯的規律——我們看不到任何明顯的規律。

No, that's helpful. And then the other clarification is just on an environment where you guys are, let's say, seeing slower revenue growth, can you still get operating leverage and increase operating margins?

不，這很有幫助。另一個需要澄清的問題是，在你們面臨營收成長放緩的情況下，是否還能獲得營運槓桿並提高營運利潤率？

Well, yes. And that's fully our intention. So obviously, it's much easier to get operating leverage and margin improvement when you're growing revenues faster. But we are who we are. So we know ourselves very well, and we know that we're a $12-billion-plus company. And so we are happy with 7% to 9% revenue growth. And it's easier to get margin when you're at 9%. Like we were -- when you back out a disposition that we had of that advance in [D] business, we were almost getting close to 10% revenue growth at one point. Now we're excluding -- again, the dispositions this year, we're probably closer to 7% or so in terms of our revenue growth. And the reality is that it's harder. But we're a very disciplined company. And so for example, you can see our headcount growth for our own internal resources slowing down slightly despite the fact that we're still investing in our sales organization, because we have lower volumes. And so we know that, we get that. We've been doing this for 68 years. And so we will adjust appropriately, because we still want to deliver great service. Retention is the most important thing for us. And so we don't want to cut too much or not cut, because this a matter of slowing the growth of expense, not cutting expense. But we are slowing the growth of expense in certain areas as our revenue growth slows in order to be able to continue to drive operating efficiencies, because we believe there's still opportunity for that. We have a lot of process-improvement initiatives underway across the company because we believe that the complexity that we have historically had, the number of platforms, all the things we've been telling you about that we're trying to simplify, all those things are margin opportunity for us, without affecting our associates and without affecting our clients.

是的。這正是我們的初衷。顯然，當收入成長速度更快時，就更容易獲得經營槓桿和利潤率提升。但我們就是我們。所以我們非常了解自己，我們也知道我們是一家市值超過120億美元的公司。因此，我們對7%到9%的營收成長感到滿意。當收益率達到 9% 時，更容易獲得利潤。就像我們當時的情況——當我們把我們在[D]業務方面的進展考慮進去時，我們一度幾乎實現了10%的收入成長。現在我們排除——再次強調，排除今年的資產處置——就收入成長而言，我們可能接近 7% 左右。而現實情況是，這更難。但我們是一家紀律非常嚴格的公司。例如，儘管我們仍在投資銷售組織，但由於銷售量下降，我們內部資源的員工人數成長速度略有放緩。所以我們知道這一點，我們明白這一點。我們從事這項工作已經68年了。因此，我們將做出相應的調整，因為我們仍然希望提供優質的服務。對我們來說，客戶留存率是最重要的。因此，我們既不想削減太多，也不想不削減，因為這關乎減緩支出成長，而不是削減支出。但隨著營收成長放緩，我們也正在某些領域放緩支出成長，以便能夠持續提高營運效率，因為我們相信這方面仍有提升空間。公司內部正在進行許多流程改進計劃，因為我們相信，我們過去存在的複雜性、平台數量，以及我們一直在向你們提到的我們正在努力簡化的所有事情，所有這些都為我們帶來了利潤機會，而且不會影響我們的員工和客戶。

And we have time for one final question. And our last question will come from Ashwin Shirvaikar from Citi.

我們還有時間回答最後一個問題。最後一個問題來自花旗銀行的 Ashwin Shirvaikar。

My question is, I guess the first question is, if bookings growth recovers or as bookings growth recovers, either because of easier comps or other factors, what's the relationship -- do they impact on margins, I would imagine would be negative. If you can talk about the specific quantification of that relationship, that would be helpful. And the other modeling question I have is with regards to the go-forward tax rate.

我的問題是，我想第一個問題是，如果預訂量增長恢復，或者隨著預訂量增長的恢復（無論是由於比較基數降低還是其他因素），它們之間的關係是什麼——它們會對利潤率產生影響嗎？我想應該是負面的。如果你能具體談談這種關係的量化方法，那就很有幫助了。我還有另一個建模方面的問題，是關於未來的稅率。

So I wish there was an easy answer to the question about margins and sales because back to, again, we want to be intellectually honest here, we had 2 or 3 years of very robust plus-12% sales growth, new business bookings growth and we drove margin improvement. So we clearly have the capability to drive margin. And some of that depends on the timing of when the investments and the expense go in. So as I think we've mentioned, we've -- I would say invested a little bit ahead of '18 from a sales standpoint. If we had strong new bookings growth next year, there might be some incremental variable cost around commissions and so forth, but I'm not saying it doesn't matter. It clearly matters. The math is very straightforward. But we have a lot of levers in our business and we make choices every day in order to balance our objectives, right? And one of our objectives continues to be margin improvement. But we also have an objective around growth. We have an objective around capital return. And we balance all of those things and I think try to do the right thing for our shareholders and our stakeholders. So I guess a long answer to -- the short answer is, we have the ability, I think, to drive margin when new bookings recover.

所以我希望關於利潤率和銷售額的問題能有一個簡單的答案，因為回到正題，我們想在這裡保持理性的誠實，我們經歷了 2 到 3 年非常強勁的 12% 以上的銷售額增長、新業務預訂增長，並且我們推動了利潤率的提高。因此，我們顯然有能力提高利潤率。其中一部分取決於投資和支出的時機。正如我們之前提到的，從銷售的角度來看，我們在 2018 年之前進行了一些投資。如果明年新訂單量強勁成長，佣金等方面可能會有一些額外的變動成本，但我並不是說這無關緊要。這顯然很重要。這個數學原理非常簡單。但是，我們在業務中有很多控製手段，我們每天都要做出選擇來平衡我們的目標，對吧？而我們的目標之一仍然是提高利潤率。但我們也有成長目標。我們的目標是獲得資本回報。我們會權衡所有這些因素，我認為我們會努力為我們的股東和利害關係人做正確的事情。所以，我想用較長的篇幅來回答這個問題——簡而言之，我認為，當新訂單恢復時，我們有能力提高利潤率。

And on the tax rate, Ashwin, this quarter was a onetime unanticipatedly strong outcome relative to our tax strategies of the R&D credits. So this quarter is not regular quarter, it was a onetime effect and so we're going to be returning to our -- well, that said, we're not giving guidance for next year, but it's certainly not going to be at the level that you saw in the third quarter.

至於稅率方面，阿什溫，本季相對於我們的研發稅收抵免稅收策略而言，是一個出乎意料的強勁結果。所以本季並非正常季度，而是一次性事件，因此我們將恢復到——也就是說，我們不對明年的業績做出預測，但肯定不會達到第三季的水平。

Got it. And the broad question I have for you Carlos and Jan is really, as you reflect back on how this year sort of transpired and you think about the operating plan for next year, which you're in the process of doing, how does that affect how you go about doing the operating plan, the factors that you're considering and so on? If you can kind of walk through the process, what changes, what doesn't change?

知道了。卡洛斯和揚，我有一個比較寬泛的問題想問你們：回顧今年發生的事情，並思考明年的運營計劃（你們正在製定這個計劃），這會對你們制定運營計劃的方式、你們正在考慮的因素等等產生怎樣的影響？如果你能大致介紹一下整個過程，哪些部分會改變，哪些部分不會改變？

I think that, frankly, the things that we look at and the things we do, many of them we learn every day. Like Jan and I are learning every year and every day in our current jobs, and we've learned from our predecessors for many years. And I think this company has a lot of deep experience and knowledge about economic cycles and about how we manage our sales force, et cetera. So we, frankly, would make changes around the edges, but we're very consistent in terms of the way we approach things. And so one of our objectives for '18 is, this is the kind of experience and environment that would lead you to be overly conservative and we want to be very careful about that. And that's why we haven't "slashed" expenses or sales investment, because we just don't see the signs that, that is the appropriate move right now. And so in a strange way, part of our challenge for '18 will be to not allow ourselves to become overly conservative, because we want to take advantage of the market opportunity that we have in front of us.

坦白說，我認為我們所看到的和我們所做的事情，其中​​很多都是我們每天都在學習的。就像我和 Jan 在目前的工作中每年每天都在學習一樣，而且多年來我們也一直在向前輩學習。我認為這家公司在經濟週期以及如何管理銷售團隊等方面擁有豐富的經驗和知識。坦白說，我們會做一些細微的調整，但我們在處理事情的方式上非常一致。因此，我們 2018 年的目標之一是，這種經驗和環境可能會導致你過於保守，我們想對此非常謹慎。這就是為什麼我們沒有「削減」開支或銷售投資的原因，因為我們沒有看到任何跡象表明，現在採取這樣的措施是合適的。因此，從某種意義上說，我們 2018 年面臨的部分挑戰是不要讓自己變得太保守，因為我們想要抓住擺在我們面前的市場機會。

The tenants translate into what you have heard or believe that our core strategic platforms need to be funded and need to be innovative. So we have a belief in our core capability to develop those products and we continue, as we had in a prior question, our belief that the service environment initiative is fundamentally positive for our business outlook going forward. So we're going to continue to drive the execution of those core strategic initiatives, and we continue to believe that our sales force has opportunity to execute and we will be funding those appropriately. So those may be the core tenants kind of really executing around the strategy that we have laid out for the last few years, also in '18 is a fair assumption to make.

這些租戶的說法可以解釋為你們所聽到的或相信的，那就是我們的核心策略平台需要資金支持，並且需要不斷創新。因此，我們對自身開發這些產品的核心能力充滿信心，正如我們在先前的問題中所述，我們仍然相信服務環境計劃對我們未來的業務前景具有根本性的積極意義。因此，我們將繼續推動這些核心策略舉措的執行，我們仍然相信我們的銷售團隊有機會執行這些舉措，我們將為此提供適當的資金支持。所以，這些可能是核心租戶，他們真正圍繞著我們過去幾年所製定的策略進行執行，而且在 2018 年做出這樣的假設也是合理的。

Thank you. And this concludes our question-and-answer portion for today. I am pleased to hand the program over to Carlos Rodriguez for closing remarks.

謝謝。今天的問答環節到此結束。我很高興將節目交給卡洛斯·羅德里格斯，請他致閉幕詞。

Just a couple of quick closing remarks. Obviously, we acknowledge we had a very challenging quarter, but I think you can also tell from our tone that we still have a lot of confidence in our business model and in our continued ability, not just to grow our business but also to drive operational efficiencies. You probably also could tell that I, in particular, I'm hopeful and optimistic that the continuing labor markets are going to continue to drive value in our HCM solutions for the markets. So I think the economic cycle and the tightened labor markets, I'm hoping will help us as we try to reengage our sales growth and our revenue growth. And I think as Jan just mentioned, we're going to continue to make the investments in our innovation and simplification efforts, because we believe they're yielding the right kinds of results. We're going to continue to align or service model so the strategic alignment initiative, I think, continues to move forward and I think is on plan. And as you also heard, we're going to continue to expand or distribution channels, because we've shown a historical ability to create opportunities and use our distribution channel to grow the company, which is ultimately our objective. And so with that, I thank you for joining the call and I thank you for your interest in ADP.

最後再補充幾點。顯然，我們承認我們經歷了一個非常具有挑戰性的季度，但我認為從我們的語氣中也可以看出，我們仍然對我們的商業模式以及我們持續發展業務和提高營運效率的能力充滿信心。您可能也能看出，我個人特別充滿希望和樂觀，相信持續的勞動市場將繼續為我們的 HCM 解決方案在市場中創造價值。所以我認為，經濟週期和勞動市場的緊張狀況，我希望能夠幫助我們重新實現銷售成長和收入成長。正如 Jan 剛才提到的，我們將繼續增加對創新和簡化工作的投入，因為我們相信這些投入正在產生正確的結果。我們將繼續調整我們的服務模式，因此我認為策略調整計劃將繼續推進，我認為一切都在按計劃進行。正如你們所聽到的，我們將繼續擴大分銷管道，因為我們過去已經展現出創造機會和利用分銷管道發展公司的能力，而這最終也是我們的目標。那麼，感謝各位參加本次電話會議，也感謝各位對ADP的關注。

Ladies and gentlemen, thank you for participating in today's conference. This does conclude the program, and you may all disconnect. Everyone, have a wonderful day.

女士們、先生們，感謝各位參加今天的會議。程式到此結束，各位可以斷開連接了。祝大家今天過得愉快。